Sci-Fi: Fetuses in incubators/artificial wombs: Who gets to make the abortion decision?

Great Debates
1

(Mods, if this is more suited for IMHO, then please relocate it as you see fit. I couldn’t figure which forum it better belonged in):

It doesn’t seem too far-fetched that someday there might be incubators that are technologically advanced to the point that they could grow a fetus/embryo all the way from conception to full-grown 9-month maturity.

If we use the “test tube” conception method - the father’s semen and mother’s egg being combined in a vial tube, entirely outside of the mother’s body - and then put into one of these artificial womb machines for 9 months - then who gets to make the decision as to whether the fetus/embryo should be aborted or not?

The fetus/embryo would never have been in the mother’s body at any point, so the traditional pro-choice argument about the woman deciding what is done inside her body doesn’t apply here. The father wouldn’t have any more say than he would with a “traditional” pregnancy. Would it be the technicians and medical administrators who get to decide if the fetus should be aborted or not? What if the parents disagree with each other - mother wants abortion, father says no? What if the parents both want an abortion, but the technicians/administrators say no?

Additionally, when would the fetus be technically considered “born?” Since the fetus was never in the mother’s body to begin with, does this mean that it was “born” as soon as the semen and egg were combined in the vial - it was born at the moment it was conceived?

2

You are assuming that - why? The father could for example be a bio-relative and the ordering party, with the ovum donated by an anonymous party. Why would that father have no more say than with a traditional pregnancy?

I expect that it would change based on local laws, perhaps by specific contract. It could be that if part of the gametes were from the parent ordering the growth, and part from an unknown donor, then the person making the order would be the one deciding. That might even be the case when all genes are donated, so long as one single party has ordered the gestation. I expect that there would be local laws establishing options and defaults for any given number of parties (it doesn’t have to be only two), and the possibility to make a contract for different choices (same as there is for marriage).

If the technology is paired with embryonic selection, a lot of the situations that currently lead to a spontaneous abortion or to a very short-lived child would be avoided before the embryo is transferred. There are many others which would be eliminated by growing inside a machine and not a woman.

I expect the child would be born same as they are now, when gestation is considered finished. For bottle babies that would be when they’re uncapped.

Another question would be, what happens if a gestation is ongoing and the parent or parents die before it gets to term: who gets custody of the embryo? And again I expect that to change by location.

3

I could see it going one of two ways: either the anti-abortion movement gets laws passed that make it illegal to abort in any case other than a fetus that is medically incapable of surviving (and maybe illegal even then), or “Whoever is paying the bills gets to decide.”

If two parents who are sharing costs disagree, then it goes to court, like any other family dispute.

4

I think we’d need a new legal framework. One possibility: both parents must consent to the creation of the embryo, and it cannot be terminated except with both parents consent. If one parent wants to terminate the gestation and the other does not, then the embryo remains in the sole custody of the one parent who wants to keep it, and the other can choose to abandon all parental rights and obligations, or not, as they prefer. Disputes would have to go through the court system.

5

Why would anyone get to make an abortion decision?

The reason we don’t criminalize abortion is that it happens inside a woman’s body, and our legal theory is that human beings have a right to bodily integrity. The mother gets to decide, not because she’s a mother, but because the fetus is gestating in her body. Even if we disagree with the decision, it’s impractical and inhumane to try to criminalize it.

In the case of an artificially gestated fetus or embryo there is no such conflict of interests. All medical decisions made for the baby in this case have to be consistent with the best interests of the baby, and don’t require any balancing of the best interests of the parents or medical staff. The parents and medical staff don’t get to decide to change their minds and kill the developing baby for no reason. Yes, we currently don’t require people with babies gestating in them to give a good reason to terminate the pregnancy. That’s not because of some consistent moral principle that mothers get to decide if they want to be parents, it’s because it’s completely impractical and impossible to regulate women’s wombs in this manner.

It happens for some patients that the best medical advice we can give them is to refrain from continuing medical treatment. If the baby has severe untreatable developmental defects, then it might be the ethical thing to do is to stop providing useless medical treatment for a baby that is dying anyway. But in no case does “we just don’t feel like having a baby anymore” a valid reason for killing the baby.

If we think it’s very likely that lots of people will change their minds after going to the expense of having an in vitro gestation, maybe we should require everyone commissioning such a baby to post a bond or buy insurance sufficient to care for the brat after it’s born, if they decide they don’t want the baby anymore and we can’t find someone to adopt the baby. And if the medical team doesn’t want the responsibility of caring for the gestating baby, maybe they should have thought of this before carrying out the procedure of creating the baby in the first place.

And if in vitro gestation becomes routine enough, then we can also argue that there’s no justification for abortion anymore. The bodily integrity argument becomes moot if we can safely remove the developing baby without killing it, and allow it to grow to term in vitro.

What happens to that baby after it gets decanted would be the same thing that happens to babies today after they get born, when one or more of the parents decides they don’t want to be a parent to the baby, or are unfit to be the parent to the baby. The baby gets adopted, or goes into foster care, or goes to the parent that wants it, and the other parent is obligated to provide child support.

In this case, the rights of the mother and father become exactly the same. Nobody has an obligation to carry a pregnancy to term in their own body, but likewise nobody has the right to force anyone to end the life of a developing baby, and likewise nobody can get out of a child support obligation unless someone else is wiling to assume full parental responsibility for the baby.

6

In Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigen novels, artificial replicators are often a plot point. The specific issue you bring up is most important in Barrayar, during which a fetus who will have disabilities is much wanted by his parents, but his paternal grandfather keeps trying to murder him, both in the replicator and after he’s born. Eventually, the boy’s bodyguard gets tired of thwarting murder attempts, and holds the grandfather out a window by his ankles until he gives his word to stop it. The grandfather believes he should make the decision since his son, he thinks, is overly influenced by his wife, the boy’s mother. Also, the boy will eventually be his heir.

7

**Lemur866 **said something I was wondering: Given that the fetus was always ‘born,’ (outside the mother’s body, conceived in a test tube,) how would this be morally different than terminating a born-two-months-premature baby in an incubator?

8

I feel it is the bodily connection of pregnancy which creates the legal right of abortion. This is why the mother has the sole right. If it was based on a genetic connection then both parents would have an equal right and this is not the case.

A man can’t decide that he wants a pregnancy to be ended because he doesn’t want his genes used to produce a child. And woman can’t end a pregnancy on that basis either. A woman can, however, decide to end a pregnancy on the basis that she doesn’t want her body to be used to produce a child.

So from this it seems to follow that neither parent would have the right to end a pregnancy which is occurring inside a machine.

9

The robot or machine has the choice. A fetus or even non-fetus isn’t entitled to suck resources from an unwilling robot.

10

In such a sci-fi scenario, I’d still be “pro-choice”, but it would be a much softer pro-choice view since it wouldn’t be based on bodily autonomy. I’d be fine with restrictions after the 1st trimester, for example.

11

Probably the exact same people who throw away fertilized embryos at fertility clinics today. The people who work there and have the expertise to know when a particular vat baby is no longer viable.

12

Now if we could just reach Mr. Robot for a few comments…

13

Right, which is why when we program sentient uterine replicators we should program them to want to gestate babies. Programming them to hate the babies they gestate might not be the best plan.

14

I believe this is already the case with a surrogate mother - the genetic mother can’t force the surrogate providing the womb to abort.

15

You think AI, once created, will stay subjugated?

16

Who would you feel is entitled to a say in the decision in such a situation? Is it still the sole decision of the mother’s or does the father now have an equal say?

17

And what do the trimesters have to do with it any more? If the reason to abort is that the fetus has been discovered to be unviable, I’d expect that decision to be taken as soon as the information is known (which could even be before it gets bottled, or it could be much later). If “I/we have decided I/we don’t want it any more” is considered acceptable (note that we’re talking about a system under which babies are always made voluntarily), then why should there be limits on when someone can change their mind? Specially for those of you who view the legality of abortions as something based on the privacy of the mother.

18

Davis v. Davis involved a custody dispute over frozen embryos. Because the husband did not want the children to be implanted in a womb, the court approved destroying them.

So much for “life begins at conception.”

19

Of course our current legal system does not believe that “life begins at conception”.

I’m sure pro-lifers who think that life begins at conception would regard the destroying of fertilized eggs as murder. But their beliefs don’t hold any legal significance.

20

I’m going to go with whoever is paying for it both the machine the baby is grown in a responsible for keeping the thing alive once it’s ‘born’. If the people feel that it is important to keep every life created alive they should create a government program that steps forward when the parents want to abort and continue keeping the lights on. If not then a parent should be able to go “you know what i actually don’t want this” and walk away.