A prominent feature of the abortion debate has become the point at which the abortion procedure should be allowed to occur.  The current governor of Virginia apparently is comfortable with some time prior to preschool.  Most engaging in this tug of war generally fight over the first or second trimester, while some contend that the moment of conception initiates a human life and intentional termination is in fact murder.

Many have used the stage at which a baby can survive outside the mother's womb as a practical dividing line.  However, the advance of medical science has gradually pushed the survival rates for premature births higher and higher.  In addition, abortion proponents argue that mere survival is too crude a metric.  A tragic percentage of premature babies face serious chronic health problems, which will make their lives difficult and possibly short.  These quality of life issues muddy the waters of what is already a painful debate.

Such is the state of the question today, but that will change.  Science marches on.  At some point in the future, perhaps not as far away as we might expect, it will be possible for a fetus to survive outside the mother's womb and be born as a healthy, normal child, perhaps from the moment of conception.  In short, the topic at hand is an artificial womb.

This sounds like science fiction.  At present, it is.  But space travel, microcomputers, atomic energy, and even airplanes were all science fiction, too, until they weren't.  Have no doubt that a practical artificial womb is coming, sooner or later.  When this will happen, I can't say.  Nonetheless, we can ponder the effect it may have before this technology becomes reality.

Artificial wombs are a well worn concept for science fiction writers.  Nightmare scenarios of multitudes of slaves or soldiers mass-produced in artificial wombs have been predicted.  Frankly, it will be our responsibility to prevent our society from becoming psychotic enough to allow such eventualities.  After all, we have implemented societal course corrections in the past.  Slavery was largely eliminated because the moral effects it had on us were eventually recognized.  Socialism is finally being dragged to the curb, kicking, screaming, and throwing tantrums the whole way. 

Like any new technology, an artificial womb will probably be used first by those who need it, for medical reasons.  Eventually, as the device is perfected, it will be adopted largely as a convenience.  Doubtless, there will be a vigorous debate on the merits of conventional versus out-of-womb pregnancy.  That debate should occur.  I don't seek to circumvent it or predict its outcome beyond expecting that both options will eventually be available to women.  My purpose is to contemplate what effect the new technology will have upon the abortion question.  I foresee thorny decisions for both pro-life and pro-abortion advocates.

An internet search shows that in the neighborhood of six hundred thousand babies are aborted in the U.S. each year.  The saddest fact in this entire mess is that these tend to be unwanted children.  Even if a technology is developed that allows fetuses to be transferred to an artificial womb to develop, these children will still be unwanted when they are born.  However many of these currently aborted babies can be saved by artificial wombs, they will all need someone to care for them, to love them.  This is the challenge pro-life people will face when medical science delivers an artificial womb.  Personally, I don't doubt that there will be more than enough compassionate people around to step up and adopt when the time comes.  It's probably best to start mentally preparing for it sooner rather than later.

The pro-abortion side will have a greater problem once a practical artificial womb becomes reality.  For argument's sake, let's stipulate that the procedure to transfer a fetus from the mother to an artificial womb could be about as invasive as a modern-day abortion.  So a woman with an unwanted pregnancy would have a third choice.  Besides carrying the child to term (followed by keeping him or giving him up for adoption) or abortion, the opportunity would exist to transfer to an artificial womb for eventual birth and adoption, without further involvement of the mother.  I suspect that this will radically test the morality of the pro-abortion view.

One would expect that the pro-abortion argument would be totally discredited, because the effect and the stigma of the unwanted pregnancy on the life of the mother are greatly reduced, if not eliminated.  And, sparing the mother from the child-bearing consequences of her actions is the basis of the pro-abortion rationale.  A practical artificial womb removes the foundation of that argument. 

To be sure, the counter the pro-abortion crowd would offer will involve the cost of running the artificial womb device and the uncertainty of finding adoptive parents for the baby.  But since we're running a thought experiment here, let's say sufficient donations pour in to finance as many artificial wombs as are needed and there is actually a waiting list to adopt those babies.  Not as far-fetched a situation as a practical artificial womb, actually.

With the props of convenience and expense and a lack of adoptive parents removed, the "choice" is stripped down to a stark one. Who would still choose to abort a fetus if the option exists to safely automate the process of pregnancy?  In a sane world, no one.  Yet I speculate that there will still be some who defend abortion, even if there is no longer a reason for it.  Because abortion is far too useful to be abandoned. 

Abortion is useful to leftist politicians because they can point to it as something that will be lost if you don't vote for them.  Abortion is useful to Planned Parenthood because it makes money.  Abortion is useful to socialists and communists because it is a sledgehammer with which to batter at the family, the main roadblock to their utopia.

Abortion is a human tragedy that opportunists have exploited to line their pockets, secure their positions, and indulge their need to boss others around.  With luck, the end of this particular tragedy at least may be in sight.  But then, actual progress has always been the progressives' biggest problem.

Image: Nogwater via Flickr (cropped).