Given the fact that medicine has advanced to the point that “preemies” born up to three or four months early can survive, do you think we’ll get to the point where any fetus at any stage of development can be saved?
Consider this: A woman is pregnant, and wants to get rid of the fetus–NOW. She goes into a special facility where the fetus is removed alive, placed into a special chamber and filled with growth hormone. Three days later, the fetus is now a full-term baby. It’s removed from the incubator, and placed up for adoption.
Okay, so the technology isn’t there yet. But I’m sure that it will be within the next 20 years. It’s win-win, really…a woman disposes of her pregnancy without killing a baby.
I realise that it won’t work for all pregnancies. But it is an interesting thought.
I won’t argue the technical possibility or impossibility, other than it this could become an option sometime in the feature.
I see a slue of problems. Who would be responsible for the child? I wouldn’t want to pay a nickel of public money to save an aborted fetus. Who is going to run and pay for the orphanages to house all the saved little throw aways? Would you be willing for this to be 100% funded by private means?
There is also the problem of overcrowded and overpopulation in 20 to 30 years. It is very possible that every less mouth brought into the world will be a blessing—the very thought of saving a fetus will be a true horror.
This ignores the complications of adoption. Will the “baby” show up on “birthmom’s” doorstep in 18 years (i.e. open adoption records) wanting a relationship? If the “baby” is not adoptable, who takes responsibility? Then the health care policy issues: Who picks up the costs of the techno-uterus? If the baby isn’t healthy, do you get to sue the provider of the techno-uterus? The medical malpractice insurance costs alone could be the stopper.
Also, in adoption demand currently outstrips supply - for healthy white babies, with the lack of those babies making the not-so-healthy and not-so-white babies placeable. But, if we don’t have abortion, that will change - and quickly. We will not have the adoptive parents to care for every child. What happen’s then? Do we let our standards on adoptive parents slide? Do only the “best” babies - those of white, athletic pre-med college students - get adoptive homes?
I think before we develop any technology involving a “growth hormone”, we will find a way to preserve the life of an aborted fetus in either an artificial womb, or the womb of another woman acting as a donor/host, for whatever amount of time it needs to grow naturally.
The problem, though, is that in some places (in the US, I don’t know about other countries) it is legal to abort a fetus that is past the point of viability as measured by today’s technology, ie the woman could terminate the pregnancy without killing the fetus, but the fetus is nonetheless killed in the procedure, on rare occasions even after it has been “delivered”, or so I’ve heard, I have no cite for this.
I don’t know that a technological breakthrough would lead to a change in the law, but perhaps it might.
I think the constitutional concept of “equality under the law” would come into play here. Laws vary from state to state, but I am morally certain that they all have laws requiring that abandoned children be cared for in state facilities. I see no reason the law should discriminate between children abandoned in the usual way, versus those abandoned via the termination of a pregnancy.
On a more personal note, your language sounds Dickensian to me. Your statements: “I wouldn’t want to pay a nickel of public money…” and “Who is going to run and pay for the orphanages to house all the saved little throw aways?” could just as easily be applied to children abandoned after birth.
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Again, the logic you are using here could be used to justify not caring for children already born.
I am finally going to complete this response, I have started several times this morning to do so
Begging the OP’s pardon I think the situation you are talking about in the future would not be the moral route to take with these unborn fetus’. First of all depending on which trimester the mother is in, forget thinking about the Physiological components of making the fetus survive in your “Growth Hormone solution” you need to take into consideration the psychological components of the proper development of the fetus. I would imagine the whole procedure would be extremely stressful on the unborn infant, the stress alone could cause very serious psychological implications due to excess hormonal excretions steming from the stress.
[I do not have a cite for this but I have read reports of neo-natal stress being linked to certain developmental phenomenon]
On top of all this the population issues need to be looked at. I completely agree that late stage abortion should not be carried out. I do not want to hijack and talk about when the fetus begins to ‘think’. But the OP’s Idea of this growth Hormone solution to me sounds like it would not be in the best interest of the fetus.
One more thing: HOW would this all be tested to make sure it would work? How many pregnant women would have to sign the relese to ‘test’ this theory.
I think the future and the best interests of the mother and unborn fetus must be looked at. I do not think abortion would become obsolete due to this proposed solution.
Dangerosa already pointed out the should-be-obvious point that there are way more abortions performed each year than there are people who want to adopt. I just thought I’d throw in the following statistics from [an anti-abortion site](http://www.abortionfacts.com/online_books/love_them_both/why_cant_we_love_them_both_34.asp#How many babies are adopted?) to show how unrealistic the “adoption, not abortion” response is:
Even if we accept, as the site argues, that those adoptive parents will each want two or three kids, the “market” for adoption is going to be completely satisfied in three years at the most. After that, we’ve got one hell of a lot of unwanted kids around, and nobody left to adopt them.
The growth hormone aspect of the OP sounds pretty unlikely to me. Artificial wombs, OTOH, are not at all unlikely. It is possible that in the not too distant future, the technology will exist to extract a first trimester fetus, pop it into an artificial uterus (or transplant it into the uterus of an adoptive mother), and let it develop naturally. However, I think that if abortion ever becomes obsolete, these sorts of techniques will not be the reason.
A more likely scenario would be that someday, abortion will be, if not completely obsolete, then extreamly rare – because there will be very little need for it. Unplanned / unwanted pregnancies will be almost unheard of. Girls reaching puberty will automatically get some sort of contraceptive implant. It will be instantly removable when she wants to get pregnant. After the baby is born, she gets a new implant. Which in its turn can be removed should she eventually want another child. There will be no pregnancies that are not planned and wanted. What about the occasional woman whose circumsances change, who changes her mind? Maybe that’s where the artificial wombs will come in to the picture.
I do think that the abortion issue is one that advancing technology can render obsolete – if we let it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of moralists out there who will strongly object to any development that makes it possible for anyone to have sex without risking pregnancy.
I thought of just a scenario for a role-playing game. The oral implications jut got too complicated for me to continue. A better idea is to prevent pregnancies as much as possible, and improve women’s lot in life. That contributes to a reduction in abortions performed than any heavy-handed proposal.
A fetus is not recognized by law an as entity with human rights, therefore there are legal justifications to differentiate between the two. Most people who believe that the fetus is human do so on the basis of their religion; allowing a fetus without legally responsible parents to feed off the public trough under such conditions smacks of paying tax dollars to support religious beliefs.
Yes, it could apply to children abandoned after birth. Ready access to birth control, abortions, and voluntary sterilizations are all cheaper than kids on the public trough and I heartily support (almost) any actions that will reduce the number of live births if it will also reduce public spending. Even if it doesn’t reduce spending I like the idea of less live births for slowing population growth.
I think Hazel had the more immediately likely idea on why abortion might get extremely rare. I’ve had story ideas set in the near future where both sexes get specialized contraceptive implants (or permanent until an antidote is received injection of a gene therapy agent) before puberty that activate with it. At legal adulthood, they can freely elect to have them removed/reversed/reinstalled after childbirth/conception at their discretion.
The GD’able dark side to that scenario is a few-fold. One, the ethics of unilaterally implanting such a device or treatment in children, perhaps even against parental consent. Two, the very real possibility that the free choice to have it removed wouldn’t be so free, requiring various bureaucratic red tape and payment/bribes/whatnot at the least, and quite possibly leading to a subtly vicious expression of racism/homophobia/classism/pick your poison.
Thanks minty! Couldn’t have made it without you breathing down my neck.
A Government which could have this much legislative power, however necessary it may become to control population, is truly frightening. I would prefer seeing the economic incentives, like tax deductions for kids, abolished first, then may incentives not to breed established before mandatory birth control implants become a necessity.
Holy Hannah and her sisters! This isn’t an artificial uterus, it’s one of those clone-making factories from a bad Science Fiction movie! What’s next, leave the baby in the Growth Hormone Chamber for another 4 months, and have it come out as a full-grown mindless soldier, ready to join the legions of your Clone Army? Will they all look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Sixth Day? Will they all talk like Arnold Schwarzenegger? And more importantly, will they be able to stand up to my legions of the living undead?! Wah ha ha ha ha!!
Well, duh :rolleyes: You seem to be saying that, if something is legal, then it’s not against the law. In math I believe they call that an identity. One equals one. The point I was making was that, unless there is some justification for the law being the way it is, then it is wrong, in violation of the constitutional principle of equality under the law.
Yes, of course it’s better to prevent unwanted children through birth control, but we were talking about children already born. Euthanizing unwanted children who are abandoned after birth would reduce public spending and slow population growth. You give me the impression that you would support such measures.
Yup. I initially had the seed of the idea around the first time I read Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers”, which had a society that mandated only those who put in military service had the right to vote. Citizens and civillians. Got me thinking on what kind of mandatories people would accept, and I concluded that wherever the line is, it’s very, very far beyond truly frightening. It’s good for a social cynic to start early.
