Science Fiction and the Ethics of Artificial Wombs: Reproductive Futures

Ectogenesis, or artificial wombs, is not yet a reality. But is it the future? In this revolutionary book, Evie Kendal explores the potential that ectogenesis has to promote sexual equality in human reproduction, and the role science fiction plays in imagining possible futures where this technology is realised.

Fictional representations of ectogenesis are typically used in bioethics to support techno-conservative views of reproduction, conflating the potential issues associated with this technology with other controversial practices, such as human cloning and genetic engineering. Arguing against this dominant trend from a liberal feminist perspective, and placing ectogestation within the rich history of debate in the area, this interdisciplinary volumeexamines the numerous benefits that growing a foetus in an artificial environment could bring in saving women from the sole burden of reproduction.

Further considering the complex dynamic between ectogenesis and science fiction, Kendal not only applies bioethical reasoning to ectogenesis but to its representation in literature and film, and the subsequent use of such media in the bioethical discourse. As a result, she highlights several problems with the current methods of engagement with science fiction in bioethics. Proposing alternatives, Kendal argues that new methods should capitalise on science fiction’s ability to both communicate biotechnical change and explore how to infiltrate emerging technologies into society.

With extended case studies, including Dawn by Octavia E. Butler, Science Fiction and the Ethics of Artificial Wombsbrings together bioethics, philosophy, feminist thought, and literary theory to tackle urgent questions about how we think about and imagine this new way of creating human life.

Evie Kendal is Senior Lecturer of Health Promotion at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. She is author of Equal Opportunity and the Case for State Sponsored Ectogenesis (2015) and editor of Teaching Medicine and Medical Ethics Using Popular Culture (2017).