Remember Brave New World, in which children were all hatched from artificial wombs, and the thought of pregnancy was revolting?

Note that Mr. Huxley, while a very talented and imaginative writer, is not generally regarded as divinely inspired. Saying, “If this goes on…”, taking some trait and exaggerating it to the extreme, makes for good fiction. It can even be instructive in some ways… but prophecy it’s not.

Dystopian fiction necessarily ignores balancing and stabilizing counterpressures.

The idea of developing a technology for transferring embryos, or creating artificial wombs, and implementing it on a massive enough scale to make a dent in the million-plus abortion per year in the United States is a fantasy.

Please note that the idea under discussion was moving late-term pregnancies that pose a medical risk to the mother. A thankfully much smaller percentage.

Nonetheless, killing babies is not an acceptable option.

If a way to save that baby’s life exists, and you choose not to pursue it, then you lose the right to say you “had” to kill the child.

Remember Brave New World, in which children were all hatched from artificial wombs, and the thought of pregnancy was revolting?

Pregnancy involves a very complex interaction between the mother and the embryo. It is not equivalent of a seed planted in the ground that can be transplanted to another plot of soil. Soil is passive. A pregnant woman is not.

Abortion could much more easily be drastically reduced by developing inexpensive and foolproof contraceptive technologies so that unwanted babies are never conceived in the first place. The idea of developing a technology for transferring embryos, or creating artificial wombs, and implementing it on a massive enough scale to make a dent in the million-plus abortion per year in the United States is a fantasy.

It is not ethical to simply dismiss the second life when a possible solution exists, and you just prefer not to pursue that solution.

I’m sorry, Blake, but as of right now transferring a 20-week-old fetus into another woman’s womb is cargo-cult medicine. It is precisely as unworkable as transferring the baby to a man.

Placentas are elaborate, complex organs. The vascular systems of the mother and child intertwine, come that close, close enough for oxygen and nutrients and wastes to exchange… but do not actually splice together. They form – and require – sophisticated interfaces with both mother and child. Someday we may be able to mimic or recreate those interfaces. Not today, and not for many years.

If you can find actual obstetricians who will tell me differently, please do so. Until then, it honestly strikes me as you willfully blinding yourself to medical reality. I’m sorry, but that’s how it looks to me.

But the arguments you presented weren’t logical.

For instance, the argument that if the baby dies, the woman will have dead flesh in her body, is irrelevant, because there is reason to suppose that there are women who are willing to take that risk.

It is ethical to prioritize one life over the other in situations where only one life can be saved.

It is not ethical to simply dismiss the second life when a possible solution exists, and you just prefer not to pursue that solution.

Of course it is easy to see the real problem, which is that we have no incentive to perfect this technology as long as abortion is justified and legal – and when we do perfect this technology, not only will we save babies, but we will also be opening up the possibility that women could be held to the same standards of responsibility (like being expected to pay child support) for the babies they didn’t intend.

Hey, don’t blame me – I didn’t make the rules.

See: The Evolution of Cooperation (Axelrod).

Once you stop cooperating with me, I no longer have much incentive to cooperate with you. That’s how it works.

Doctors as a group can either be reliable, trusted professionals – or they can do nothing while some of them mis-use their authority (and spend the whole group’s reputation) to push a political agenda.

You can’t have it both ways.

This is why “integrity” matters. Because some things in life are either-or.

It’s a real problem. You can’t just simply use “medical emergency” as a filter, now that doctors as a group have destroyed their ability to be reliable as filters.

Hmmm. Interesting argument. Some doctors do things you don’t like, and therefore “doctors as a group have destroyed their ability to be reliable as filters”?

Can you explain why the minority of anti-abortion activists who encourage or engage in violence don’t mean that “anti-abortion activists as a group” are now guilty by association?

But either way it remains the same: either do a better job proving that a viable baby “isn’t human”, or make a good-faith effort to save that baby’s life.

I linked to my arguments about personhood in my first comment here, and we’ve hashed it over before. It’s not germane to this case, when we both agree that (at least a good case can be made that) a 20-week-old fetus qualifies as human.

And we’ve already talked about why your ideas for a ‘good-faith’ effort are simply unworkable. If you can come up with a better idea, quite frankly the Nobel prize for medicine awaits you.

I bet a lot of women would take that risk. I think it’d be worth it. Imagine – ending the abortion debate, by providing an alternative that blows away all the excuses of the baby-killer crowd?

Well, if you feel that strongly about it, why not volunteer yourself?

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Male_pregnancy#In_humans

Robert Winston, a pioneer of in-vitro fertilization, told London’s Sunday Times that “male pregnancy would certainly be possible” by having an embryo implanted in a man’s abdomen – with the placenta attached to an internal organ such as the bowel – and later delivered by Caesarean section.[5][6][7] Ectopic implantation of the embryo along the abdominal wall, and resulting placenta growth would, however, be very dangerous and potentially fatal for the host, and is therefore unlikely to be studied in humans.[5][8] Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services, a British fertility clinic, noted that the abdomen is not designed to separate from the placenta during delivery, hence the danger of an ectopic pregnancy. “The question is not ‘Can a man do it?’” stated bioethicist Glenn McGee. “It’s ’If a man does have a successful pregnancy, can he survive it?’”

I bet a lot of women would take that risk.

I think it’d be worth it. Imagine – ending the abortion debate, by providing an alternative that blows away all the excuses of the baby-killer crowd?

Heck ya.

Just make sure they give informed consent.