Abstract
In this contribution, I will defend the view of AWT (artificial-womb technology) as free reproductive choice and argue that ectogenesis technology should become a morally acceptable option. The chapter is divided in two parts. In the first part, I shall point out arguments against and in favour, advantages and advantages, of AWT. In the second part, I shall show how artificial-womb can be seen as a technology that might be used also by women who are not infertile and for whom pregnancy is not a risk and a tool for partially ending the unequal division of reproductive labour.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Albury, R. (1984, Spring). Reproductive Technology and Feminism. Australian Left Review, 89, 46–55.
Amoretti, C., & Vassallo, N. (2017). Philosophy of Sex and Gender in Gender Medicine. Special issue of Topoi, 36(3), 473–559.
Arditti, R., Duelli, K. R., & Minden, S. (Eds.). (1984). Test-Tube Women: What Future for Motherhood? Pandora Press.
Badinter, E. (1981). The Myth of Motherhood: An Historical View of the Maternal Instinct. Souvenir Press.
Brassington, I. (2009). The Glass Womb. In F. Simonstein (Ed.), Reprogen-Ethics and the Future of Gender. Springer.
Bulletti, C., Jasonni, V. M., Lubicz, S., et al. (1986). Extracorporeal Perfusion of the Human Uterus. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 154, 683–688.
Bulletti, C., et al. (2011). The Artificial Womb. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1221, 127.
Burley, J. (1998). The Price of Eggs: Who Should Bear the Cost of Fertility Treatments? In J. Harris & S. Holm (Eds.), The Future of Human Reproduction: Ethics, Choice, and Regulation (pp. 127–149). Clarendon Press.
Buuck, J. (1977). Ethics of Reproductive Engineering. Perspectives, 3(9), 545–547.
Cannold, L. (1995). Women, Ectogenesis and Ethical Theory. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 12(1), 55–64.
Cavarero, A. (1995). In Spite of Plato. Polity Press.
Cavarero, A. (2000). Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood. Routledge.
Chavatte-Palmer, P., Levy, R., & Boileau, P. (2012). Reproduction without a uterus: State of the art of ectogenesis. Gynecologie Obstetrique & Fertility, 40, 695–697.
Corea, G. (1985a). How the New Reproductive Technologies Could Be Used to Apply the Brothel Model of Social Control Over Women. Women’s Studies International Forum, 8(4), 299–305.
Corea, G. (1985b). The Mother Machine: From Artificial Insemination to Artificial Wombs. Harper & Row.
Corea, G., et al. (Eds.). (1985). Man-made Women: How the New Reproductive Technologies Affect Wome. Hutchinson.
De Beauvoir, S. (2010). The Second Sex. (C. Borde & S. Malovany-Chevallier, Trans.) Alfred A. Knopf.
Donchin, A. (1986). The Future of Mothering: Reproductive Technology and Feminist Theory. Hypatia, 1(2), 121–138.
Finn, S., & Isaac, S. (2021). Evaluating Ectogenesis Via the Metaphysics of Pregnancy. In R. Davis-Floyd (Ed.), Birthing Techno-Sapiens: Human-Technology, Co-Evolution, and the Future of Reproduction. Routledge. chapter 8.
Firestone, S. (1970). The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. William Morrow and Company.
Gelfand, S. (2006). Ectogenesis and the Ethics of Care. In S. Gelfand & R. Shook (Eds.), Ectogenesis: Artificial Womb Technology and the Future of Human Reproduction. Rodopi.
Griffin, S. (1978). Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her. Harper and Row.
Grossman, E. (1971). The Obsolescent Mother: A Scenario. Atlantic, 227, 39–50.
Johnstone, M. (2010). Ethics and Ectogenesis. Australian Nursing Journal, 33(11), 33.
Jonas, H. (1984). The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age. The University of Chicago Press.
Kendal, E. (2015). Equal Opportunity and the Case for State Sponsored Ectogenesis. Palgrave Macmillan.
Kimberly, L. L., Sutter, M. E., & Quinn, G. P. (2020). Equitable Access to Ectogenesis for Sexual and Gender Minorities. Bioethics. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12723
Kingma, E., & Finn, S. (2020). Neonatal Incubator or Artificial Womb? Distinguishing Ectogestation and Ectogenesis Using the Metaphysics of Pregnancy. Bioethics. https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12733
Kristeva, J. (1980). Desire in Language. A Semantic Approach to Literature and Art. Columbia University Press.
Kuhse, H. (1987). The Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine in Medicine. A Critique. Clarendon.
Kukla, R. (2005). Mass Hysteria: Medicine, Culture, and Mothers’ Bodies. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Langford, S. (2008). An End to Abortion? A Feminist Critique of the “Ectogenetic Solution” to Abortion. Women’s Studies International Forum, 31(4), 263–269.
Lorde, A. (1984). The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. In Id. (Ed.), Sister Outsider (pp. 110–114). The Crossing Press, Freedom.
Moore, A. (2017, April 25). A Unique Womb-Like Device Could Reduce Mortality and Disability for Extremely Premature Babies. CHOP News. https://www.chop.edu/news/unique-womb-device-could-reduce-mortality-and-disability-extremely-premature-babies
Mullin, E. (2017, April 25). Animals Set Survival Record Inside Artificial Womb. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604261/animals-set-survival-record-inside-artificial-womb/
Murphy, J. (1989). Is Pregnancy Necessary? Feminist Concerns about Ectogenesis. Hypatia, 4(3), 66–84.
Murphy, T. F. (2012). Research Priorities and the Future of Pregnancy. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 21(1), 78–89.
O’Brien, M. (1981). The Politics of Reproduction. Routledge & Kegan.
Oakley, A. (1984). The Captured Womb: A History of the Medical Care of Pregnant Women. Basil Blackwell.
Overall, C. (2015). Rethinking Abortion, Ectogenesis, and Fetal Death. Journal of Social Philosophy, 46, 126–140.
Partridge, E., Davey, M., Hornick, M., et al. (2017). An Extra-Uterine System to Physiologically Support the Extreme Premature Lamb. Nature Communications, 8, 15112.
Pence, G. (2006). What’s So Good about Natural Motherhood? In S. Gelfand & J. R. Shook (Eds.), Ectogenesis: Artificial Womb Technology and the Future of Human Reproduction. Rodopi.
Pfeffer, N., & Woollett, A. (1983). The Experience of Infertility. Virago.
Räsänen, J. (2017). Ectogenesis, Abortion and a Right to the Death of the Fetus. Bioethics, 31(9), 697–702.
Raymond, J. (1987). Preface. In G. Corea et al. (Eds.), Man-Made Woman: How the New Reproductive Technologies Affect Women (pp. 9–13). University of Indiana Press.
Rich, A. (1977). Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. Virago.
Romanis, E. C. (2018). Artificial Womb Technology and the Frontiers of Human Reproduction: Conceptual Differences and Potential Implications. Journal of Medical Ethics, 44, 751–755.
Rowland, R. (1987, Spring). Technology and Motherhood: Reproductive Choice Reconsidered. Signs, 12(3), 512–528.
Satz, D. (1992). Markets in Women’s Reproductive Labor. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2(2), 107–131.
Simonstein, F., & Mashiach-Eizenberg, M. (2009). The Artificial Womb: A Pilot Study Considering People’s Views on the Artificial Womb and Ectogenesis in Israel. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 18(1), 87–94.
Singer, P. (1994). Rethinking Life and Death. The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics. Text Publishing.
Singer, P., & Wells, D. (1984). The Reproduction Revolution: New Ways of Making Babies. Oxford University Press.
Singer, P., & Wells, D. (2006). In S. Gelfand & J. R. Shook (Eds.), Ectogenesis. In Ectogenesis: Artificial Womb Technology and the Future of Human Reproduction (pp. 9–26). Rodopi.
Smajdor, A. (2007). The Moral Imperative for Ectogenesis. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethic, 16, 336–345.
Smajdor, A. (2012). In Defense of Ectogenesis. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 21(1), 90–103.
Smajdor, A. (2016). Ectogenesis. In H. ten Have (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Bioethics. Springer.
Steiger, E. (2010). Not of Woman Born: How Ectogenesis Will Change the Way We View Viability, Birth, and the Status of the Unborn. Journal of Law and Health, 23, 143–171.
Stone, A. (2011). Feminism Psychoanalysis and Maternal Subjectivity. Routledge.
Takala, T. (2009). Human Before Sex? Ectogenesis as a Way to Equality. In F. Simonstein (Ed.), Reprogen-Ethics and the Future of Gender (pp. 187–195). Springer.
Tonti-Filippini, N. (2003). The Embryo Rescue Debate: Impregnating Women, Ectogenesis, and Restoration from Suspended Animation. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 3(1), 111–137.
Usuda, H., Watanabe, S., Saito, M., Sato, S., Musk, G., et al. (2019). Successful Use of an Artificial Placenta to Support Extremely Preterm Ovine Fetuses at the Border of Viability. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 221(1), 69.e1–69.e17.
Walters, W. (1982). Cloning, Ectogenesis, and Hybrids: Things to Come? In W. Walters & P. Singer (Eds.), Test-Tube Babies: A Guide to Moral Questions, Present Techniques and Future Possibilities. Oxford University Press.
Warren, M. A. (1986). Making Babies: The New Science and Ethics of Conception by Peter Singer; Deane Wells. Ethics, 97(1), 288–289.
Warren, M. A. (1989). The Moral Significance of Birth. Hypatia, 4, 46–65.
Wishart, B. (1982). Motherhood within Patriarchy: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective. Third Women and Labour Conference Papers, 1, 23–31.
Wolfe, A. D. (2008). Wrongful Selection: Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Intentional Diminishment, and the Procreative Right. Thomas M. Cooley Law Review, 25(3), 475–502.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tripodi, V. (2022). The Right and Unfair Aspects of Artificial Womb Technology. In: Terrone, E., Tripodi, V. (eds) Being and Value in Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88793-3_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88793-3_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-88792-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-88793-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)