Throughout human history, every single one of us has been born from a person. But that is about to change. It is claimed we are within ten years of developing an artificial womb, raising the possibility that having children could take place without pregnancy or childbirth. In this interview with Mia Sorenti, Claire Horn discusses the pressing legal, social, and ethical questions that arise from this radical innovation, and offers a compelling blueprint for the way forward.

A natural parallel to this upcoming technology is the birth control pill, which some credit as catalysing huge shifts such as the sexual revolution, the transformation of the traditional family and workplace, and paving the way for gay rights. What changes do you think the artificial womb might catalyse in our society?

While writing Eve I thought about the parallels between the artificial womb as promissory technology (a technology that is in development but doesn't exist yet), and other technologies of reproduction that were once promissory, such as the contraceptive pill, IVF and medication abortion. What they all have in common is that, when they were in development, they were heralded as big game changers for family making and women’s autonomy. But in actual fact, many of those technologies were absorbed into the existing legal framework and regulatory system, rather than revolutionising them. That doesn't mean that they didn't catalyse social change, but there was a kind of limitation around what was possible because it was within this existing, imperfect, social context. And that's the argument that I make in Eve: ectogenesis (the development of a foetus outside the uterus) certainly has the potential to change crucial facets of family, reproduction, and what it means to be a person. But we need to look at the social context that curbs the possibilities that are inherent with this technology. Having said that, I do think it is important to imagine: what if there was a world in which, for instance, the aims of reproductive justice have been realised? What if from that place we could imagine how this technology could be used in interesting, compelling ways?