10-02-2014, 11:41 AM
For those who are interested, in OA, synthetic wombs appear in the second century AT, or sometime between about 2069 and 2170.
My expertise is not in that field, so I don't know, but my guess is it's still a long way away. On the other hand, given the progress we've made in medical tech in the last several decades, I wouldn't be surprised if some research in this field has already been done. Fetal surgery is sufficiently common it has its own Wikipedia page. Fetal transfer between natural wombs, sometimes referred to as "fetal adoption", would be simpler but is also currently impossible, and the implementation might be impractical even if it were.
Personally, it would be an understatement to say I'd love to see something like this IRL, because the potential is enormous - it could be a potential alternative to abortion, a solution for women who have difficult pregnancies, an alternative for colonizing distant worlds, etc.
My expertise is not in that field, so I don't know, but my guess is it's still a long way away. On the other hand, given the progress we've made in medical tech in the last several decades, I wouldn't be surprised if some research in this field has already been done. Fetal surgery is sufficiently common it has its own Wikipedia page. Fetal transfer between natural wombs, sometimes referred to as "fetal adoption", would be simpler but is also currently impossible, and the implementation might be impractical even if it were.
Personally, it would be an understatement to say I'd love to see something like this IRL, because the potential is enormous - it could be a potential alternative to abortion, a solution for women who have difficult pregnancies, an alternative for colonizing distant worlds, etc.