March 8, 2025 - 8:00am
Every human ever born has been carried to term inside a woman, whether it be their biological mother or a surrogate. But as artificial wombs that could save the lives of premature babies get closer to human trials, there may be a future in which that is not the case.
We aren’t actually close to solving the challenge of developing an artificial womb that can house a baby all the way from fertilised egg to birth. This is partly because of regulatory barriers, including that embryos may only be cultured for research for 14 days, but also because of the great difficulty of replicating the unique characteristics of human pregnancy.
But even though end-to-end artificial wombs don’t yet exist, we already disapprove of them. New polling this week from the think tank Theos has found that a majority of Britons (52%) oppose artificial wombs if used to gestate a baby entirely outside its mother’s womb. Though the polling also shows that 62% of people would support the use of an end-to-end artificial womb in cases where the mother or baby’s life would be at risk during a normal pregnancy, 71% would oppose using one where the mother wanted to avoid the pain and discomfort of pregnancy and giving birth.
There are good reasons to be cautious about end-to-end artificial wombs. We should consider very carefully whether there are negative health effects or other problems that might arise from being gestated ex utero, and what it might mean for society if most of us came to be born this way.
Yet what the Theos polling has largely uncovered is a knee-jerk “ick” reaction to the idea of “growing a baby in a bag”, a feeling that this development is a harbinger of a creepy, dystopian future. It wasn’t so long ago that many of us questioned IVF, wondering whether it was right to create “test tube babies”. But today, more than 12 million babies have been born worldwide via IVF (I’m married to one) and opposition towards the treatment is minimal in modern Britain.
What may also drive a scepticism towards artificial wombs is a sense that having a child simply shouldn’t be so easy, that labour pains are somehow a necessary ingredient to becoming a mother. But it is a mistake to romanticise the pain of childbirth, just as it is a mistake to romanticise the suffering of any human being. When I gave birth on Christmas Day last year I chose to have an epidural, and while I respect that many women prefer not to have pain relief during labour, I cannot say that I feel I have missed out. And nor do I believe that my bond with my baby is less close, or my motherhood less complete, because I brought my daughter into the world without pain.
Theos also found that Generation Z is much more supportive of the idea of end-to-end artificial wombs, with 42% of those aged 18-24 in favour of this technology. This could be because younger people are less conservative than older ones, or because those in this age group are less likely to be parents themselves. But in a world of declining birth rates, with Britons having fewer children than they would like, it is promising. Helping more people have children must include the woman who wants an elective C-section as well as the woman who longs for a water birth aided only by aromatherapy.
So as we consider the theoretical future woman who might opt to “grow her baby in a bag”, using a technology that may become unremarkable, we should listen to our instincts — but not let them rule us.
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SubscribeLet’s also consider the psycho-physiological effects of not hearing a mother’s heartbeat, of not hearing her speaking and breathing, of feeling these things.
Who knows how this.might affect our human development, our ultimate wellbeing?
This will not end well.
Birds know about the significance of communication between mother bird and chick. A domestic hen, sitting on eggs for 21 days or so, constantly turns them and clucks to them. Birds hatched under artificial conditions lack that start in life.
Shame on UnHerd! Your author is an idiot who doesn’t know the basics of mammal biology.
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While studying wild baboons in Kenya, I once stumbled upon an infant baboon huddled in the corner of a cage at the local research station. A colleague had rescued him after his mother was strangled by a poacher’s snare. Although he was kept in a warm, dry spot and fed milk from an eyedropper, within a few hours his eyes had glazed over; he was cold to the touch and seemed barely alive. We concluded he was beyond help. Reluctant to let him die alone, I took his tiny body to bed with me. A few hours later I was awakened by a bright-eyed infant bouncing on my stomach. My colleague pronounced a miracle. ”No,” Harry Harlow would have said, ”he just needed a little contact comfort.”
From https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/books/no-more-wire-mothers-ever.html
Note that this biologist was a woman! Her name is Deborah Blum.
When women talk to their babies in the womb, they know what they’re doing.
I’m rather glad the article was published. It gave me the opportunity to learn about what Deborah Blum wrote about the baboon.
Yes, the article is idiotic, as are those who are directly involved in this proposed new technology. Society may have to face it some day, but we are better forearmed as the result of comments such as yours and those of others.
This article is a good example of an article that is idiotic which, notwithstanding, generates very useful comments, yours included.
Yes this is very important, there are biological conditions being disrupted or totally removed under the artificial outsourcing of natal development which might be vital holistic conditions for both the child and mother
A tweet on X by a young man celebrated the idea of the artificial womb because “we won’t need women anymore”.
Not sure he had thought that through but it does give insight into male attitudes to women’s value to society.
More likely it’s a reaction to men being told they are unnecessary.
Artificial wombs and the erasure of womanhood are part of the great transhuman project.
I see. So one tweet by an individual male gives an insight to male attitudes in general does it? Your world must be so crammed full of conflicting ‘insights’ you can hardly see….
If there is any insight to be gained by that, David Morley’s is just as likely to be valid, if not more so.
No mention of the implications for abortion. Or perhaps I missed that bit
Here’s something to think about. A single woman using a sperm donor has one of her eggs (or pehaps an egg from a donor) fertilized and then gestated in an artificial womb. Then, a few months into the “pregancy”, she dies. Who decides what is to happen to the artificially gestating fetus? And what is the range of possible decisions?
Yup, if the baby isn’t inside the mother’s body then, presumably, the father could demand an abortion.
The article starts “Every human ever born has been carried to term inside a woman”. Not true, what of premature births. The article goes downhill from that point.
Carrying of a baby in utero to beyond 37 weeks is known as full-term; being delivered before then is the term of that particular infant.
It is utterly fascinating to see the human ingenuity that the wholesale abandonment of God fosters! Women’s suffrage and the sexual revolution of the last few decades has delivered universal contraception, widespread abortion, no fault divorce, the breakdown of the family, depopulation, gay ‘marriage’, gender fluidity, online dating, incels, infertility, delayed motherhood…..
But, thank God – and just in time – artificial wombs, the latest saviour of the human race, soon to be available in a marketplace near you!
Will she actually be necessary? And won’t some men and women simply opt to have the children “mothered” or “fathered” using celebrity DNA?
I could not more profoundly disagree with this article. I don’t think it is an ignorant, knee-jerk ‘ick factor’ so much as an instinctive appreciation that intimate human connections are essential for healthy human development – from conception to birth and well beyond…I think artificial wombs are the opposite of ‘promising’ for countries with declining birth-rates; the mere concept is a symptom of our distorted perception of babies as commodities and lifestyle choices…
Great comment! It goes to the fundamental issue, and does so so much more succinctly and comprehensively that I could have done.
Mary Harrington said it all by saying something along the lines that pregnancy not only makes a baby but also the mother
Harrington’s book Feminism Against Progress goes into this
Can anyone explain to me how our humanity is not degraded when we support an industry that needs regulations ‘that prohibit the culture of embryos for more than 14 days’
please re read those words- we culture and sell human ‘material’ for ‘research’.
Soon we will gestate babies in artificial containers because after all they are just human material. Isn’t there just a possibility that a baby experiences more than functional material support in its mother’s womb?
What type of human being, deprived of this most fundamental human experience will emerge from this most in human of experiences?
It’s understood where you’re coming from, but there are potentially huge benefits to early-stage embryo research, including the identification and treatment of diseases.
The reason the 14-day limit is imposed is so that research doesn’t overstep into the kind of dystopian culture you allude to. To balk at this might be seen as being unreasonable, since every time one of us takes an antibiotic or uses a painkiller we’re “interfering with nature”.
People really need to take technology away from progressives before they hurt themselves any further (and more importantly everyone else).
A bit too late for that, but I like your styling.
“It wasn’t so long ago that many of us questioned IVF”
We should still question IVF.
And we should question the extreme steps taken to save premature babies.
Both are likely to have a dysgenic effect.
It’s good, I guess, to be reminded that people like Phoebe Arslanagić-Little exist.
Profoundly, shamelessly anti-human.
I suspect she’s also a fan of surgical attempts to turn women into men, and vice versa.
The in utero experience of the baby (heat, sounds, hormones circulation, etc.) is not something that can be replicated by an artificial womb.
Remember one of the reasons why surrogacy is so criticized. Adopting a child whose biological parents cannot take care of is one thing; deliberatly planning a break-up between a baby and the woman who gestated it is another. Same for the “artificial womb”: depriving a baby of all the sensorial experience of human pregnancy is cruel. After that, go for an epidural if you want, or a C-section if needed: pain can be ditched, and what matters most is, as per the conventional saying, thet “both baby and mother are fine”.