A couple of talented-but-confused confused Rhymer Enterprises technomages (Brad & Suzy are their names) recently burned through about seventy billion dollars of the R&D budget working on a device they called the Erica Kane 2005. This device, as some of you may have already deduced, allows for the teleportation of human fetuses (and even embryos) from their mother’s uteruses for implantation in an artificial womb in which they can be brought to term.
When I learned of this project, I was naturally enfuckingraged: partly because the device should have been called the Julian Bashir 2718281828, but mostly because its evil applications are limited. But I calmed down eventually (not soon enough to keep Brad from being dropped into the alligator pit, but that’s another matter) because I began to see certain chaos-spreading possibilities, not to mention a whole buttload of money to be made. So we’re making the arrangements to bring the JB2718 to market. It will, naturally, be obscenely expensive, as RhE is not on the side of kittens and hugs.
Let’s take it as a given that the JB2718 has been gone through extensive human testing (that’s what time-displaced Etruscans are for) and shown to be entirely safe for use on human women and the embryos/fetuses in question. It can be used any time after the second week of gestation. All it does, incidentally, is safely remove the embryo/fetus from the womb and bring it to term in the artificial uterus; it cannot in other words be used to repair birth defects. If the fetus in question had both genes for Tay Sachsbeforehand, it still will afterwards. Two questions, then:
Does the existence of this technomagery change your mind on whether abortion should be legal?
Regardless of your answer to (1), do you think most pro-choicers will change their minds?
Poll in a moment, but don’t let that slow you down.
The way you frame it makes the device not a viable option, because conservatives wouldn’t allow any government to pay for this obscenely expensive device to be used on anyone who can’t afford it; and anyone in the 0.1% who can afford it almost certainly doesn’t need it.
For this to make a dent in the pro-choice argument that a woman ought to be able to choose whether to carry a child to term, because of the physical effects that it has on her body when she does, not to mention potential health risks, then the alternative has to be a genuine option for at least most people. Making it obscenely expensive means that it does not meet that standard.
So no, I don’t think this would change my mind, and I don’t think it would change the abortion debate very much.
Not necessarily. I didn’t specify “obscenely,” after all. Since RhE’s main brief is to cause chaos, we’re just going to make sure the JB2718 is always more expensive than abortion in any given area; that can just be an extra $10 bucks. In other words, the price is “obscene” in that RhE is mostly out to stir up shit.
The OP only talks about embryos that start in a real human uterus. I’m asking about embryos created in a lab, ostensibly for IVF. Would they need to spend two weeks in a person or could they go straight to the JB?
I understood your question, and it seemed reasonable; that’s why I didn’t mock you cruelly in my reply. So yes, I’m going to rule that the JB2718 can be used to bring IVF babies to term under the terms you suggest.
Since this effectively solves any baby shortages, abortion should still be legal to cull unwanted embryos. Also, it prevents issues relating to parental rights.
This would not change my position on abortion- a woman is, no matter what, entitled to make decisions about her body and when (and how) to expel something from inside her that she doesn’t want there. That being said, were such a device cheap, easy, and safe to operate (especially if the risk of complications was lower than traditional abortions), I would expect many doctors to stop performing traditional abortions in favor of the new procedure.
I’m pretty sure Pat Robertson and everyone at Fox News will see it as a chance to outlaw abortion.
I’m gonna say no.
What the hell do I care? RhE is a largely though not exclusively criminal enterprise dedicated to making money, murdering Welshmen, and stirring up shit.
Pro choice means I believe that every woman should decide for herself how to handle her pregnancy. That includes deciding if she wants to give her child up for adoption or abort rather than face the odds that her child will be one of the hundreds of thousand of children in foster homes with no real hope of finding a family.
On a practical level, the JB2718 will increase the number of babies waiting to be adopted. It won’t increase the number of families looking to adopt. Also the JB2718 doesn’t address the number one reason that women seek abortions: financial problems. As such, it doesn’t really seem to offer much in the way of a practical alternative to abortion.
The JB2718 will certainly stir mass quantities of shit but since it doesn’t do anything to address the long term problems that drive women to abortion, it wouldn’t do anything to make me think abortion should be illegal.
I’m pretty solidly pro-choice, and this doesn’t really change my view, unless:
IFF this product was introduced AND a completely functional, sustaining foster / adoption system was introduced that essentially guaranteed a solid childhood with NO repercussions for the bio parents AND pregnancy rates were such that there was no risk of overpopulation…yeah, I could accept a ban on abortion.
My prochoice stance is based around a woman’s right to bodily autonomy first, and the horrendous rates of child abuse in the foster/adoption system second. Your device addresses the first, but not the second.
Nope, I expect many to say that’ll stick with wanting women to be able to kill their offspring if they see fit despite no longer needing to keep said embryo/fetus in their bodies due to the whole “my body, my rights” being a (somewhat) palatable excuse to justify murdering the inconvenient.
I don’t think anyone who doesn’t want to should have to carry a fetus to term. I don’t think anyone who doesn’t want to should have to be a parent. The JEB2718 would definitely change how I would have the second one put into practice.
I guess with the JEB2718 available I’d still want abortion to be legal, but depending on how the technology would be used, to whom it would be available, and what the embryos’ fates would be, abortion might no longer be necessary.
No, if for no other reason—and I have other reasons—than my view on abortion also covers fetal medical problems and birth defects.
Although, as a matter of fact, this device opens up new opportunities in fetal stem-cell research…if a genetic trigger for anencephaly can be isolated, brainless fetii could be created, generated, and harvested virtually at will. Recent supreme court rulings, alas, cut into the potential patent licensing income from such a gene.
I’m pro-choice, and this device wouldn’t change my mind. I’d welcome it as another option, but I don’t think that it should or would replace abortion completely.
As a feminist, I think that it’s outrageous that only Brad got dropped into the alligator pit, unless Suzy was dropped into a crocodile pit. Or maybe a snake pit. It just depends on what sort of pits you keep around RhE.