Re: Key Breakthrough in Human History (see p. 16)

Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Sun, 20 Jul 1997 22:20:08 +0200 (MET DST)


On Sun, 20 Jul 1997, Damien Broderick wrote:

> I find a one-paragraph report on p. 16. Japanese scientists `have
> delivered infant goats from an artificial womb... human babies may be born
> the same way in 10 years time'.

Yes, I was amazed when I turned on my television set after arriving
from a net-less weekend in northern Sweden and seeing the artificial
womb. This is important news, although previous work along the same
lines have been done (including at the Roslin institute).

Together with in vitro fertilization and cloning this technology
allows us (in theory) to completely separate sex from reproduction.

As transhumanists, now is our chance to use the chock value of this
news (together with the relative news drought of the summer) to start
some serious debate about the definition of humanity and what destiny
we want to seek as a (or several) species.

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