Part 2:
Cultural impacts of ectogenesis.
What would an artificial womb look like?
Research into an artificial womb.
Pessimism of the future of ectogenesis.
Possible Supreme Court reactions.

Dr. Helen Hung-Ching Liu, Director of Cornell University's Reproductive Endocrine Laboratory at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility studied the beginning stages of pregnancy. In 2003, she grew a mouse embryo in an artificial womb almost to full term. ₄ In 2011, her team removed cells from a woman's uterus. Using hormones and growth factors, they were able to grow the cells on:

"...scaffolds of biodegradable material which had been modeled into shapes mirroring the interior of the uterus."

Her team has placed "surplus" embryos obtained from fertility clinics onto this womb, The embryos attached themselves to the artificial uterus and grew. The experiment was terminated after six days. Because of existing U.S. in-vitro fertilization laws, such experiments cannot be continued after the embryos reach 14 days development. The Cornell University team has no indication how long a human embryo would continue to develop. She hopes to develop a complete artificial womb in the future. Research will probably have to be done in Britain or in some other country because existing federal laws in the U.S. would prohibit such research. Her goal is to help women who have difficulty initiating a pregnancy because of damage to their wombs.

Dr. Thomas Schaffer of Temple University worked on the other end of pregnancy. He attempted to develop an artificial atmosphere which would save premature babies from death or disability. The atmosphere is a breathable liquid made of perfluorocarbons which contain more oxygen than air. He successfully evaluated the fluid on premature lamb fetuses who were not capable of breathing regular air. He said:

"We have [premature] babies that are six hundred grams [1.3 pounds] born on a toilet, brought to a NICU [Neonatal Intensive Care Unit], and survive. Now we can take care of these children."

He lacked the funding to continue his study.

Dr. Yoshinori Kuwabara of Juntendo University in Japan has developed a rectangular artificial womb which is made from acrylic plastic and filled with heated amniotic fluid. "The fetus lies submerged in the tank womb which replaces oxygen and cleans the fetus' blood with a dialysis machine connected to the umbilical cord..." ₅ Working with goats, fetuses were transferred to the machine after three weeks of gestation. ₆ That would be equivalent to transplanting a human fetus at the end of the first trimester. His goal is to help women who often miscarry. He estimated in 2003 that an artificial womb for humans could be available within five years, given sufficient funding levels. It didn't happen. However, by 2014, his team has "successfully gestated goat embryos." ₇

Dr. Stanley Korenman, associate dean of ethics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and an obstetrician/gynecologist, said:

"By the second trimester, fetuses have essentially completed their embryological development. They have all of their organs. It's in the first 12 weeks when embryogenesis takes place, and from a purely technical point of view, I find it a very distant possibility that we will ever understand enough about that development to be able to control it. I'm not sure we even want to go there.....A large number of people, I think, will find this idea ethically unappealing. An artificial womb commodifies the outcome, the child. It interferes with the relationship between the mother and child and imprinting that is a part of pregnancy. There's an intrinsic feeling that it's the wrong thing to do."

Dr. Randy Morris, an associate professor of reproductive endocrinology and a private practitioner, said:

"The uterus of a pregnant woman draws about 25 percent of the heart's output, every minute of the day. That's an enormous amount of blood flow that an artificial womb would have to duplicate. Beyond that, you'd have to know exactly how much oxygen to infuse within that blood, how much nutrients and what kinds, what sorts of hormones and when. I truly doubt we know enough about how to gestate a natural pregnancy, let alone put all of that into action in a laboratory setting." ₈

Dr. Randy Morris, an associate professor of reproductive endocrinology and a private practitioner, said:

"The uterus of a pregnant woman draws about 25 percent of the heart's output, every minute of the day. That's an enormous amount of blood flow that an artificial womb would have to duplicate. Beyond that, you'd have to know exactly how much oxygen to infuse within that blood, how much nutrients and what kinds, what sorts of hormones and when. I truly doubt we know enough about how to gestate a natural pregnancy, let alone put all of that into action in a laboratory setting." ₈

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