'Brave New World' babies: Is there a 'pregnancy robot' in our future?

(OSV News) -- "And this," said the Director, opening the door, "is the Fertilizing Room."
In the dystopian opening scene from Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," the "tall and rather thin but upright" Director is among the powerful functionaries at the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre, which -- in the future Huxley (1894-1963) envisioned -- artificially reproduces and then conditions humans to fit predetermined societal roles.

Of course, it's only fiction -- and so, it seems, was the announcement at the end of August that a Chinese scientist had developed a "pregnancy robot" -- an artificial womb capable of gestating a human child.

But that didn't stop more than a few major mainstream media outlets from sharing the development; Newsweek dutifully reported "a prototype could be ready as early as next year."

Still, as the boundaries of reproductive medicine are continually pushed, is such a development really that far off? Is it even possible? And if so, what are the moral implications -- or consequences?

"Stories like these start out as wondrous," said Tod Worner, a practicing internal medicine physician and editor-in-chief of the print and online versions of Word on Fire's Evangelization & Culture journal, as well as its podcast. "Look at the inventiveness of the human mind! Look at the promise of science! And, if the studies showed superior outcomes compared to our current medical standard of care, consider the impact on saving a premature baby's life!"

"The trouble, however," he continued, "is that our eyes get too big for our stomach. The tendency of innovators and entrepreneurs -- who have fame and fortune on the line, not simple wonder and altruism -- to move from a limited application -- e.g., saving the life of a dangerously preterm baby -- to grandiose designs -- Procreation without unity! Babies without mothers! Mass production of babies! -- is almost irresistible."

And not just irresistible, but proposed as unstoppable.

"'Science,' we are told in a tut-tut fashion, 'marches on and how can we stand in its way?' Whenever someone says, 'Don't be ridiculous, it will never come to such outrageous ideas,' just know," Worner cautioned, "someone has already thought of and considered such ideas as plausible and preferable."

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a neuroscientist and senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, raised several biological and moral issues.

"A pregnancy robot involves a form of surrogacy," said Father Pacholczyk. "We should not pay other women to become surrogates and carry a pregnancy for us, nor should we pay companies to sell us devices that carry our pregnancies as high-tech surrogates."

He also finds the idea demeaning to women -- a reminder of "how we are growing ever more accustomed to pursuing 'substitutes' for women in their unique nurturing dimensions."

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church notes, "Only respect for the link between the meanings of the conjugal act and respect for the unity of the human being make possible procreation in conformity with the dignity of the person."

"Serious moral concerns arise when researchers seek to enable the start of a pregnancy within an artificial womb, either through men engaging in sexual 'relations' with a female-appearing robot, or via the manual mixing of sperm and egg as occurs in IVF, followed by embryo transfer into the robot," Father Pacholczyk continued. "Children have the right to be brought into being exclusively within the loving marital embrace of their mother and father, and it remains profoundly unethical to generate new life in test tubes, pregnancy robots or other devices."

"The body-to-body self-giving of spouses is the unique and privileged setting that safeguards the origins of the next generation and helps assure that their human dignity is respected," he explained. "It also decreases the likelihood that children will be treated as objects for manipulation, or products to be marketed, for the gratification of well-heeled customers. The interests of children," he concluded, "must supersede the desires of adults who might envision them merely as a means to an end."

The use of an artificial womb or other mechanical device purely as an advanced incubator for the gestation of naturally conceived but prematurely delivered babies is, Father Pacholczyk said, generally ethical.

"Such an approach constitutes a form of treatment and life-saving support for a child who, regrettably, ended up being born too early. On the other hand, if we take matters into our own hands and become 'life-makers' who manufacture human beings in glassware -- and then also impose a 9-month machine-based gestation upon them -- we are clearly crossing multiple ethical lines," he advised. "We end up violating both the designs of our own human sexuality, and the respect that is due to all new human life in its origins."

Christopher Raub, associate professor and chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at The Catholic University of America, said the technology for an extremely premature infant incubator is indeed under development.

"An article published in Scientific Reports last year by researchers from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Duke University describes a technology that might one day help infants born extremely pre-maturely -- circa 20-23 weeks of gestation," shared Raub. "It is important to note that this device -- the extra-uterine environment for newborn development (known as EXTEND) -- was tested on preterm lambs but not preterm human infants; and has not been proposed for use for full-term development of (for example) an IVF human embryo by anyone involved."

If successful, could it ensure a greater survival rate for "preemies"?

"The device was developed as a possible way to improve the health of extremely premature infants," Raub noted, "and it remains to be seen if such technology produces better outcomes than the current standard of care (and how this can be ethically tested)."

As to the current technological capacity to produce a "pregnancy robot," Raub was skeptical.

"The first 20 weeks of life are supported by the mother's whole physiology -- including her immune system, hormones, kidneys and many local tissue factors (both known and unknown) that likely require implantation of the embryo into the uterine wall," he explained. "A temperature-controlled aseptic environment with extracorporeal oxygenation and artificial amniotic fluid was not designed to recreate the intrauterine environment of the first trimester."

"So no, this would not be currently possible," concluded Raub, "and future technical innovations would likely be very expensive and unethical to test for safety with human embryos."

There's a familiar cinematic story, Worner said, that's also relevant to the maxim "Just because we can do it, doesn't mean we should."

"This is what I call 'the Jurassic Park question,'" declared Worner, referring to the 1993 blockbuster film. "It comes at the moment when a moral question (which is also a logical question) is raised by the chaos theorist and two paleontologists to the white-coated engineers and the avuncular entrepreneur who raced ahead, cultivated an island of dinosaurs, and plunged into the abyss of the unknown."

"We forget that progress is meaningless without establishing the direction toward which you are progressing," Worner reflected. "In effect, you can surely progress, but you can do so in a dark and disturbing direction."

That's not, of course, to say that Worner is anti-science.

"Science is a wonderful gift from God, but it is complicated. The brilliant minds that can launch a spaceship can craft an atomic bomb. The science that can devise life-saving chemotherapy can also manufacture poison gas. Tests that can detect a child's genetic malady can also lead to that child's abortion," he observed.

"Winston Churchill once warned, 'The dark ages may return, the Stone Age may return, on the gleaming wings of science.' We should celebrate science, but be cautious," said Worner. "A moral question should forever be paired with a scientific one. 'Can we do this?' should always be purified by, 'Is it moral to do this?'"

The twinning of Worner's faith and his profession provides an informed viewpoint.

"As a practicing physician, I have never met a scientist or technologist who is completely selfless and objective," he shared. "If I could rely on one entity to weigh in on the consequences of modern science and technology, it would be the church -- the one institution (as G.K. Chesterton would say) that has been 'thinking about thinking for two thousand years.'"