Artificial wombs are coming. That's a good thing.
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Artificial wombs are the stuff of science fiction, the scary kind. I think of The Matrix, when Neo wakes up in the real world, covered in goo. But in recent years, researchers have taken enormous leaps in helping embryos survive and grow outside a uterus. Artificial wombs are becoming more science, less fiction.
Any conversation about this topic gets heated, fast. Some people HATE the idea of an artificial womb. They feel that this technology could be used in terrible ways, like to control how people have kids or breed babies. Or that pregnancy is an important, special connection that we can never replicate with technology. Or that it’s a useless distraction, because there’s way more important stuff we should be investing in right now to make life easier for parents (parental leave, affordable childcare) and in the US at least, we don’t.
But others LOVE the idea. They feel that artificial wombs could help reduce the risks of pregnancy, and point out that more than 800 women die from childbirth around the world every day. Or that pregnancy holds women back, with data showing the wage gap is borne mostly by mothers. Or simply that bearing children is painful, an argument all on its own.
At the start of this episode, I feel genuinely conflicted. But halfway through, something happens that gives me a much-needed perspective shift.
In this video, we dive deep into artificial wombs, with help from leading researcher Dr. Jacob Hanna. We explore how close we really are on artificial wombs now, how they work, why they’re so controversial - and why I realized I’d totally use one.
Chapters:
00:00 Artificial wombs are coming
1:42 What is an artificial womb?
2:58 How close are we to artificial wombs?
4:06 Why are artificial wombs controversial?
6:42 Why we need artificial womb research now
9:42 My big perspective shift
12:19 What to expect from surgery
14:53 I get surgery
16:30 Why we need artificial wombs
18:48 The artificial womb moonshot
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Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated video producer and journalist. Cleo produces detailed explainer stories about technology and economics. She wrote the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained, was the host and a senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, as well as a host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked. She now makes her own independent show, Huge If True. Each episode takes on one big technology innovation or idea, explains what it is, and helps people imagine the ways it could improve the world we live in by answering one simple question: If this works, what could go right?
Sources and additional reading:
- The twitter fight that inspired this episode: https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1483491180906045440
- Dr. Hanna and his team’s research, “Ex utero mouse embryogenesis from pre-gastrulation to late organogenesis,” Nature 2021 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03416-3
- “Maternal Mortality,” Our World In Data https://ourworldindata.org/maternal-mortality
- “The true cause of the gender wage gap,” Vox https://www.vox.com/2018/2/19/17018380/gender-wage-gap-childcare-penalty
- Organ transplant data, US Dept of Health and Human Services https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/data/
- “Experimenting With Test-Tube Babies,” New York Times, 1979 https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1979/02/17/111075214.html?pageNumber=20
Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/
Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX and Zoom H4N Pro
Music: Musicbed
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—
Welcome to the joke down low (an idea 100% in reference to Answer In Progress’ awesome “joke below the fold” - I always scroll down to see them and always wanted to do this myself too):
How did Batman decorate his baby’s crib?
With a bat mobile.
Find a way to use the word “bat” in a comment to let me know you’re a real one 😉
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