(LifeSiteNews) — Scientists are developing robot surrogates with artificial wombs designed to “give birth” to human babies.
These artificial wombs are designed to mimic a pregnancy from conception to delivery, with the infant receiving nutrients through a tube.
Chinese scientist Dr. Zhang Qifeng, founder of the company Kaiwa Technology, said that the technology is already in a “mature stage” and that a prototype will be sold for 100,000 yuan (approx. 13,929 USD) next year.
“Now it needs to be implanted in the robot’s abdomen so that a real person and the robot can interact to achieve pregnancy, allowing the fetus to grow inside,” Zhang stated.
According to media reports, the details of how exactly a human embryo would be created and later implanted in the machine remain unclear. However, it would likely involve some form of in vitro fertilization.
READ: IVF has killed more than 250 million human embryos since 1978: analysis
The developing babies would be inside the robot for the entire gestation period and be surrounded by artificial amniotic fluid designed to create an atmosphere similar to a womb.
The robot is allegedly intended to address rising infertility rates in China and elsewhere.
The Telegraph claimed that the artificial wombs “could revolutionise medical science and our notions of family and fertility,” implicitly admitting that they are an attack on the natural family.
Critics have warned that it is unethical and cruel to deprive a baby of the natural womb of its mother. Medical experts have raised doubts about whether the artificial womb could replicate human gestation. They stressed that the complex biological processes, like maternal hormone secretion, cannot be replicated by robots.
Moreover, the unborn baby and its mother exchange cells during pregnancy, in a process called microchimerism. The transfer likely helps the baby’s immune system by providing exposure to maternal immune factors and, therefore, potentially reducing the risk of autoimmune disease.
Babies also begin to recognize their mother’s voice while still in the womb, fostering bonding, emotional regulation, and language development.
Artificial wombs for potentially IVF-created babies are not the only dystopian plan that powerful and influential groups are currently developing. As LifeSiteNews reported recently, billionaire investors are also funding companies to genetically manipulate embryos in order to create “designer babies” that could be gene-selected for certain desired traits such as higher IQ.
