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Will Science Trump Politics in Resolving
Abortion Debate
 Artificial
wombs will be "reality" within 20 years, according
to www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0%2C%2C2-1755908%2C00.html
the London Times. Indeed, 20 years seems a
conservative estimate given observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,648024,00.html
an earlier report in The Guardian, another UK
newspaper, which predicted them in 2008.
Discussion of ectogenesis
-- www.stanford.edu/dept/HPST/ectogenesis/introduction.html
ectogenesis, the growing an embryo outside the
mother's womb -- may sound wildly futuristic. But a
few years ago,www.arhp.org/patienteducation/onlinebrochures/cloning/index.cfm?ID=282
cloning and genetic modification seemed impossible.
A few years before that, the idea of a 66-year-old
woman giving birth was absurd; itwww.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=18957
happened last January. And only last week,
www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1566144,00.html
British scientists received an official go-ahead to
create human embryos from two mothers with no male
genetic contribution.
For better or worse, new
reproductive technologies (NRTs) are redefining the
ground rules of reproduction. (And, no, the force
of law can not hold back scientific 'progress' as
authorities have discovered repeatedly since
Galileo's day.)
NRTs may also redefine the
politics surrounding reproduction, including the
issue of abortion. I welcome the prospect. It is
difficult to believe that science could a worse job
with the issue than courts and fanatic rhetoric. At
the very least, science may offer new methods of
ending a pregnancy without destroying an embryo or
fetus.
This possibility becomes
more likely in the presence of two factors. First,
viability is being established at ever-earlier
stages of pregnancy. Recently, doctors have been
successful in administering perflubron -- a liquid
that replaces the amniotic fluid -- to babies as
young as 23-weeks-old, with a 70% survival
rate.
Second,
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPST/ectogenesis/introduction.html
ectogenesis seems to be experiencing
breakthroughs.
In 2002, a team at Cornell
University used cells from a human uterus to grow
www.popsci.com/popsci/futurebody/dc8d9371b1d75010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
an artificial womb. When a fertilized human egg was
introduced, it implanted itself in the uterus wall
as in a natural pregnancy. After six days of
gestation, the experiment was halted due solely to
legal constraints.
Meanwhile, half-a-world
away, Dr. www.thebatt.com/media/paper657/news/2003/09/30/Opinion/A.Scientific.compromise-508045.shtml
Yoshinori Kuwabara of Juntendo University in Japan
has been removing fetuses from goats and keeping
them alive for weeks in clear plastic tanks of
amniotic fluid with machine-driven 'umbilical
cords'.
Frida Simonstein, of Ben
Gurion University in Israel, stated at a recent
conference on ethics and emerging medical
technologies, "Society now expects better outcomes
for premature babies. Society also demands
improvement in IVF effectiveness. Yet society
should be equally aware that these demands require
research that leads to the development of an
artificial womb."
She concluded, "We must
start discussing this topic now while we have still
enough time to decide what we may want, and why."
Abortion activists, both
pro-choice and pro-life, should heed Simonstein's
warning. Science has sped past the current state of
debate and those stuck behind in the rut of
discussing Roe v. Wade may find themselves
obsolete. Whether or not ectogenesis is ever able
to sustain a nine-month human pregnancy, one thing
is clear: key issues like viability are being
redefined by science. The abortion debate must move
into the 21st century where it may be possible for
many pro-choice and pro-life advocates to find
common ground.
Science will not make the
abortion debate go away. The conflict is too deep
and involves such fundamental questions of ethics
and rights as, "What is a human life?" "Can two
'human beings' -- a fetus and the pregnant woman --
claim control over the same body?" and "When does
an individual with rights come into existence?"
These questions are beyond the scope of
science.
Nevertheless, technology
can impact the debate in at least two ways. First,
it can explore ways to end a pregnancy without
destroying the fetus which may then be sustained;
if such procedures became accessible and
inexpensive (or financed by adoptive 'parents'),
then abortion rates would likely decline…and
sharply.
Second, it may offer "an
out" for activists on both sides who sincerely wish
to resolve the debate and not merely scream at each
other at ever increasing shrillness.
Many pro-choice women,
like me, have been deeply disturbed by
http://www.layyous.com/ultasound/fetalbehavior.htm
ultrasound scan photos that show fetuses sucking
their thumbs, appearing to smile and otherwise
resembling a full-term baby. Many of us would
welcome alternate procedures and forms of
ectogenesis as long as they remained choices. And
as long as both parental rights and parental
responsibilities could be relinquished.
For their part, pro-life
advocates who are sincerely bothered by the
totalitarian implications of monitoring pregnant
women and demolishing doctor-client privilege might
well jump at a technological solution.
Such activists may be
surprised to find allies where enemies once
existed.
Of course, some pro-choice
feminists will reject the possibility without
discussion, and for one reason. Many states ban
abortion once the fetus has achieved viability.
Since ectogenesis pushes viability back to the
embryo stage, all abortions might become illegal.
That would constitute a catastrophic political
defeat.
Moreover, many pro-life
advocates will oppose NRTs as dehumanizing,
unnatural, and against their religious beliefs.
To date, the most notable
thing about activists' response to NRTs has been
the lack of it, especially when compared to the
clamor surrounding every other aspect of abortion.
It sometimes seems as though the two extremes want
to shout rather than consider solutions.
And so the debate will
continue among those unwilling to explore any
'solution' not fashioned from their own
ideology.
But the extent of the
problem may well be diminished by science, by NRTs
that sustain the viability of fetuses removed from
women who do not wish to become mothers. Like heart
transplants or intrauterine operations to correct
birth defects, ectogenesis may taken for granted
some day.
The most optimistic
scenario is that a not-too-future generation will
look back on abortion as a barbaric procedure, and
learn the terms 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' from a
history text.
More realistically, NRTs
will just help a bad situation. But help should not
dismissed lightly.
©2007, Wendy
McElroy
* * *
Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute
in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of
many books and articles, including her latest book,
Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century. She lives with her husband in
Canada. E-Mail.
Also, see her daily blog at www.zetetics.com/mac
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