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, 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.
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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?

This tension between hope and concern is really prominent in Eve. In your book, you pose the question “why is it so much easier for people to imagine a world where artificial wombs lead to dystopian authoritarianism than a feminist utopia for communal childrearing?” In the media, we see time and time again the headline ‘Brave New World’ when discussing artificial wombs. What about contemporary society makes us so inclined to evoke dystopia?

The context from which people are speculating is really important here. When we look historically and even in the present, there are some unjust, horrific ways in which new reproductive technologies have been used. For women, particularly black and indigenous women, new reproductive technologies have often been used to cause harm. And so appreciating this historical precedent means it is entirely reasonable to discuss the problematic and dangerous ways that artificial womb technology could be used.

On the other hand, however, I think there is a lot of anxiety among those who benefit from a patriarchal society. In bioethical literature, you do often get these articles, mostly from men, proposing that artificial wombs would mean the end of abortion. Even as they're saying those kinds of things, they're also filled with anxiety about the possibility that there could be liberatory uses of this technology. They’re worried that some women might actually want to circumvent pregnancy, and simply say that they would rather use an artificial womb. And I think some of this continual evoking of Aldous Huxley’s world, over and above radical feminist ideas, is also to do with this kind of patriarchal grasp on gendered bodies and quelling voices who might preface the potential dangers of this technology, but also dare to dream how it could be something different.

On the topic of abortion, which you dedicate an entire chapter of your book to, what would the implications of this technology be for this area of reproductive rights? What do these bioethicists mean when they say the artificial womb could ‘solve’ abortion?