Predictions about technology are liable to failure and mockery. Let me venture a guess about a device that will be with us before I retire from ministry.
One day, I will wake up to a headline about the first successful baby transplant. This baby will not be moved from one woman’s womb to another. She will be moved from her mother to an incubator. For some reason, I can’t imagine this artificial womb will be soft or curvy. I foresee a glass container attached to countless wires and tubes.
They might call it The Cube.
I’ll see pictures of the mom looking through the Cube’s glass at her baby. I will tear up, knowing that medical technology has saved my kids’ lives, too. Amazed at this experiment gone right, I will share the article with friends, celebrate the survival of this child, and feel a sense of relief for her parents.
The script of Christian discourse from here on out writes itself. Pro-life Christians (may their tribe increase!) will think of ways the Cube can be used to solve intractable problems. First, the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos can finally have a home until they reach full-term. Second, every reason given to abort a pre-born child will have a rejoinder. Why not use the Cube instead? Two birds, meet one stone.
The Christians who question this technology will focus on the side-effects or trade-offs. What happens to an unborn baby who is incubated rather than born? Are there any greater chances of disease or miscarriage? What if the biological parents of the IVF embryos don’t want their babies to grow in an incubator? If a pregnant woman still wants an abortion, should the government force her to transplant her unwanted baby into the Cube?
The discourse will also address the issues caused by artificial wombs at a mass scale. If only the rich can afford the Cube, will wealthy women use it to avoid weight gain while poor women struggle with “the old kind of pregnancy”? Will old-school pregnancy become a rich woman’s boutique “gestation journey” while poor women are told the Cube is the cheaper and healthy choice for their babies? What happens when we use gene-therapy in conjunction with the Cube? If a mom can avoid morning sickness and a dad can pay for a tall, athletic son, that may seem worth the investment.
Mammon, the god of money, is already aware of the inefficiencies of female gestation. Will companies want to fund their female employees’ use of the Cube, so they won’t quit or take maternity leave while pregnant? (Women can work while their baby gestates!) Surrogacy may be put out of business by the new competition, but which citizens will be allowed to use the Cube? Christians will ask who has the right to such a device? Americans will fracture across religious, social, and political tribes trying to figure out who has legal standing to manufacture or use the device. The Supreme Court will get involved, perhaps multiple times. Pro- and anti-Cube groups will want to know where politicians stand.
Thinking through this future scenario is an easy way to get a headache. Allow me to make it harder for Christians. Suppose scientists perfect the Cube’s technology. Zero miscarriages occur in the Cube. There is no greater risk for diseases for incubated babies rather than womb-babies. If it costs a lot of money, a bipartisan bill will pass in Congress to subsidize it. The law will restrict its use to the “right user,” whatever that means to you. And perhaps CRISPR will go out of business, so we won’t be able to do gene therapy.
Let’s call it “immaculate gestation.” No death, no sickness, no accidental side-effects.
The temptation at this point is to follow consequentialist logic. Consequentialism says, “What is best or right is whatever makes the world best in the future.” If a goal is morally important, any method of attaining that goal is acceptable. A pro-life consequentialist might say, “The Cube could save every unwanted baby, out-compete the surrogacy industry, and save premature babies and their mothers. If the technology was perfected, there is no counterargument.”
There are many problems with consequentialism, but I’ll limit myself to two. First, any evil could be justified after the fact if a greater outcome resulted. (This didn’t work out so well for the high priest who condemned Jesus.) Second, we don’t know the future, so we often end up justifying bad means and we are left holding the bag of unforeseen consequences.
Pro-life consequentialism has an additional setback. It separates what God naturally binds together. If we were to accept the Cube, we will separate women from a natural organ that belongs in their bodies. Unfortunately, Christians have accepted this kind of separation over the past seven decades. John Mark Comer summarized this trend in Live No Lies:
“The reversal of the long-standing moral consensus around promiscuity (which separated sex from marriage) worked in tandem with the advent of birth control and the legalization of abortion (which separated sex from procreation), which moved to the legalization of no-fault divorce (which turned a covenant into a contract and separated sex from intimacy and fidelity), then to tinder and hookup culture (which separated sex from romance and turned it into a way to "get your needs met"). From there it's moved on to the LGBTQI+ revolution (which separated sex from the male-female binary), the current transgender wave (which is an attempt to separate gender from biological sex), and the nascent polyamory movement (an attempt to move beyond two-person relationships).”
Notice Comer’s repetition of the word “separation.” That’s what the Cube would be designed to do. My concern is that the Christian discourse would not see this flaw. Christians will argue about the Cube, but the discussion will be an accounting of pros and cons, benefits and risks. I want to fill in the missing dialogue in the script. Someone should say, “This device separates women from their wombs.” That fact, despite its possible benefits, should make us wary.
I can’t prove in this article that using the Cube would be intrinsically evil. I can imagine a universe in which it is only used in the NICU to save premature babies or their moms. But it’s nearly impossible to imagine those limitations in this universe. Instead, the Cube will likely become an elective procedure, and personal choice will trump moral objections.
Christian leaders, overwhelmed by the dilemma, will be silent for fear of speaking in ignorance on the topic. Unable to weigh the pros and cons of artificial wombs in the fallen world, they will likely use the pulpit to place these decisions in the hands of the individual’s conscience. If recent history is likely to repeat itself, “conscience” will quickly become a free-for-all. And free-for-all often becomes all. Before we know it, Cube-babies will be a celebrated norm in the Church and anyone raising a concern will be seen as judgmental and legalistic. “There is no verse in the Bible that prohibits artificial wombs.”
If they follow the script, Christians will continue a trend. They will put up a fight that won’t last a fortnight. They will be latecomers to the sexual revolution but join it in the end.
