World’s First Artificial Womb Facility - Concept Announced.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

[scienceandstuff.com...]

Ignore the typical fear mongering at the start of the article, it's there to set up the scenario that makes the facility, which eliminates the need for parents, look like a godsend.

The concept was announced a couple of days ago by Al-Ghaili and what makes it possible now is the CRISPR gene editing tool which also made RNA based vaccines possible. [en.wikipedia.org...]

My opinion: Doing things like this and then debating if we should have is backwards. Also, am I awake?

[graeme_p]

A few problems I see with this - the foremost is the risk of being one of the first generation of babies born this way.

It is going to raise a whole lot of interesting social, legal and moral issues. It might solve some too.

The article linked to about a lamb born this way (and the original paper: [nature.com...] ) which mentions what is probably the best initial use until safety is established: increasing the chances of survival of very premature babies. At the moment the chances of a 20 week baby surviving is very low: given they are probably going to die anyway they are good candidates for an unproven/high risk treatment.

With regard to the infertility issue, I think we really do need research into the rise in infertility (average sperm counts have dropped in many countries, and there are measurable physical effects too) and the possibly linked fall in the age of puberty (both boys and girls, although it is more obvious with the latter).