Artificial Womb Technology Cannot End the Abortion Debate for the Prolife Catholic

Abstract

According to some faithful prolife Catholic bioethicists, the potential creation of artificial womb technology (AWT) may provide an end to the abortion debate for both pro-abortion and prolife advocates. They contend that in cases where a pregnant mother desires to procure an abortion, the prolife advocate may accept partial ectogenesis (i.e., the transferring of the conceptus in utero into an artificial womb), as a licit alternative to abortion. While defenders of abortion who have redefined the right to an abortion as a right to procure the death of the conceptus have rejected this proposal, it has found little opposition from prolife Catholics. In this paper, I argue that AWT cannot resolve the abortion debate for the faithful prolife Catholic. In the first section, I argue that the elective use of AWT is licit only when it is necessary to preserve the well-being of the conceptus or his mother. Elective partial ectogenesis (i.e., partial ectogenesis that is not medically necessary) is best described as an act of illicitly depriving the conceptus of his prima facie right to be gestated in his mother's womb. In the second section, I argue that the use of AWT in lieu of abortion would further distort society's perception of the beauty of the distinctly maternal, the importance of the mother–child relationship in pregnancy, and the distinction between the masculine and feminine which must be upheld. This paper does not answer the unresolved and important question of if and when ERDs 47 and 49 apply in light of technological developments in AWT.

While it appears unlikely that most pro-abortion advocates would find artificial womb technology (AWT) to be a reasonable alternative to procuring an abortion, as there has been an increasing effort to define a right to an abortion as the right to procure the death of the conceptus, ¹ certain prolife Catholic ethicists appear much more willing to allow AWT to function as a morally licit alternative to procuring an abortion. Christopher Kaczor, one of the earliest Catholic prolife advocates to endorse such an opinion, argued that “the foremost opponent of abortion in the modern world, the Catholic church, has not condemned artificial wombs in lieu of abortion and has strong reason to support their use. If this is correct, then both consistent defenders and consistent critics of abortion could accept the permissibility of using artificial wombs in lieu of abortion” (Kaczor 2005, 301). Although Kaczor has recently changed his mind about whether AWT would end the abortion debate, it is not because he thinks prolife ethicists should reject this solution. Rather, it is because of the way in which pro-abortion advocates defend their views today:

However, the scholarly discussion of these issues in recent years has convinced me that I was wrong. Although I still think that prolife advocates would accept artificial wombs in lieu of abortion, it has become increasingly clear to me that many defenders of abortion defend not just abortion as the termination of a pregnancy but also abortion as the termination of the life of the prenatal human being. (Kaczor 2023, 176)

Rev. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P. is another Catholic prolife bioethicist who has implicitly endorsed this view, writing:

Finally, we should acknowledge that the invention of an artificial womb for human use should have a considerable impact on the debate over legalized abortion. If made readily available and if it is cost-effective, artificial womb technology, in principle, should allow a woman to exercise her right to bodily autonomy and allow her child to live out his right to life. This should resolve the abortion debate especially in those jurisdictions where the viability of the fetal child already limits a woman's right to an abortion. (Austriaco 2021, 142–143)

To be clear, neither Kaczor nor Austriaco believes that AWT should be used for the whole pregnancy. That is to say, Kaczor and Austriaco, while opposed to complete ectogenesis which is the “generation and development of a human being outside the womb from the beginning of embryonic existence until the equivalent of forty weeks’ gestation,” defend partial ectogenesis, “the development of a human being during the typical gestational period outside the maternal womb for part of (but not the entire) gestational period,” in lieu of abortion (Kaczor 2005, 289).

In this paper, I will argue that AWT cannot settle the abortion debate for the Catholic prolife advocate. In the first part of the paper, I will argue that partial ectogenesis is licit only when this must be done to save the conceptus’s life. Otherwise, the transfer of the conceptus from his mother's womb to an artificial womb constitutes an illicit deprivation of his right to be carried in his mother's womb, a right affirmed in recent decades by the Catholic Church. In the second part of the paper, I will move from an action theoretical analysis of elective partial ectogenesis to examining how the use of AWT in lieu of abortion betrays a problematic understanding of genuine female autonomy, depreciates the good of childbearing, and contributes to the distortion between the sexes.

Elective Partial Ectogenesis and the Right to Be Gestated by One's Mother

As Kaczor has noted, the Catholic Church has made no official pronouncement on the use of AWT. Nevertheless, one principle affirmed by the Catholic Church that is of immediate relevance to the discussion is the right of every conceptus to be gestated in his ² mother's womb. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith articulates this in its 1987 instruction Donum vitae as follows

The child has the right to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up within marriage: it is through the secure and recognized relationship to his own parents that the child can discover his own identity and achieve his own proper human development. (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith 1987, II, emphasis added)

This right is reaffirmed by Saint John Paul II in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus annus, “Among the most important of these rights, mention must be made of the right to life, an integral part of which is the right of the child to develop in the mother's womb from the moment of conception” (John Paul II 1991, no. 47). What is of note here is Saint John Paul II's explicit connection between a child's right to life and his right to develop in his mother's womb from the moment of conception. The right of the child to develop in his mother's womb is in some way a consequence (an integral part) of his right to life.

One need not accept magisterial pronouncements to accept that a child's right to be carried in his mother's womb naturally follows from a child's right to life. In responding to pro-abortion bodily rights arguments from authors such as Judith Jarvis Thomson and David Boonin, I have argued that a conceptus’s right to life entails the right to use his mother's body to continue living (Ramirez 2023). This is because a person's right to life logically entails the right to not be deliberately deprived of whatever is teleologically ordered to keep her alive. If this were not the case, the “right to life” would merely be a flatus vocis, corresponding to nothing real. If a person had a right to life but no right to the heart in his body, then he does not have any substantive right to life. As Jim Stone has put it in less teleological and more mechanistic language, an individual's right to life “minimally entails their right prima facie to the continued use of whatever all members of that species require to sustain life, when its use is acquired by the biological mechanism determined by their common nature. This explains why it is paradoxical to claim that human beings have a right to life, but no right to continue breathing air” (Stone 1983, 83). By extension, if the conceptus has a right to life (which is not contested by Kaczor, Austriaco, or any other Catholic bioethicist faithful to the Magisterium), he too has a right to make use of whatever is teleologically ordered to his survival. And since his mother's womb is teleologically ordered not toward his mother's survival (as she could survive without her womb), but to her offspring's survival, his right to life logically entails the right to make use of his mother's womb.

Importantly, the right to be carried in a mother's womb should not be interpreted to mean that removing a premature baby from his mother's womb is always illicit. As Kaczor says in response to what he calls the “deprivation of maternal shelter objection” to his argument, an objection I will examine more closely soon, “It is possible, however, that deprivation of maternal shelter and gestation is prima facie wrong, but nevertheless may be justified in certain circumstances” (Kaczor 2005, 292). To use Kaczor's example, it would not be illicit in itself to deprive a premature, but viable, baby of maternal shelter whose mother either begins dying or dies. This applies a fortiori to a case in which a premature baby must be removed from his mother's womb to preserve the child's life.

While I agree with Kaczor on this point, it should be argued that it is not illicit in itself to remove a premature, but viable, baby from his mother's womb when his mother begins dying or dies because, at this moment, his mother's womb no longer becomes a place of maternal shelter. In other words, this is not a deprivation or a violation of a right of a child to be carried in his mother's womb, because his mother's womb is no longer functioning as a womb or a place of safe shelter for the child. Any right is limited by the intrinsic teleological ordering of the object that one has a right to. For example, the Catholic Church has repeatedly affirmed an individual's right to private property, ³ but because property is intrinsically ordered to the common good in virtue of the principle of the universal destination of goods, an individual's right to private property does not entail the right to use property in a way that harms the common good. In other words, a right to private property entails only the right to use property as property, that is, as ordered to the common good. This is likewise true of the child in utero who has a right to be carried in his mother's womb only insofar as he is making use of his mother's womb qua womb. To keep a child in his mother's womb when that would pose a direct threat to his own life or his mother's life is to undermine the end for which a mother's womb is made, namely, the survival of the mother's preborn child. Hence why Kaczor is correct in saying that, “Maternal gestation and shelter are important to the human being in utero to the extent that they aid and support the well-being of the human fetus. In cases in which it endangers the life of a human being to remain in utero, depriving a human fetus of maternal gestation is not morally objectionable; but may be morally praiseworthy” (Kaczor 2005, 292).

Let us now assess the deprivation of maternal shelter objection to which Kaczor responds. Kaczor motivates the objection by appealing to a passage from Donum vitae, which states

The freezing of embryos, even when carried out in order to preserve the life of an embryo—cryopreservation—constitutes an offense against the respect due to human beings by exposing them to grave risks of death or harm to their physical integrity, and depriving them, at least temporarily, of maternal shelter and gestation, thus placing them in a situation in which further offenses and manipulation are impossible. (Kaczor 2005, 292)

Following this, Kaczor writes “Partial ectogenesis necessarily involves the deprivation of maternal shelter and gestation, and so the use of artificial wombs would seem to be objectionable” (Kaczor 2005, 292). Of course, this passage could be put alongside those cited above as making a cumulative case against elective partial ectogenesis. Nevertheless, the following question remains. If, as we have granted, the physical act of removing a child from his mother's womb is not illicit in itself, could the prolife person permit elective partial ectogenesis as an alternative to abortion? The only difference, it would seem, is that the threat posed to the child that would justify removing him from his mother's womb in the previous example proceeds from a natural cause, while the threat posed by an abortion proceeds from a voluntary cause. Does it make a moral difference whether the danger to the child proceeds from a natural or voluntary cause? Kaczor provides the following reason in support of a negative answer:

Does the voluntary or involuntary nature of the danger mark a morally decisive difference between the two cases? Whether the danger is voluntarily or nonvoluntarily caused makes no difference from the perspective of the preborn who are threatened with death. Death is just as final from a voluntary cause as from a nonvoluntary cause. Indeed, many causes of danger to the human fetus which could be considered “natural” can be originally caused by voluntary actions. For example, one can imagine a case in which a pregnant woman is dying because she was in a car accident that she caused by her irresponsible driving, or perhaps a case in which a woman is dying from lung cancer because she smoked too many cigarettes. The details of a causal chain which ends with a human fetus being in danger of death unless removed from the womb do not, therefore, appear to be morally decisive in determining the permissibility of the use of highly advanced incubators. (Kaczor 2005, 292)

While it is indeed true that from the perspective of the unborn child, it makes no difference whether the danger that threatens his death is voluntarily or nonvoluntarily caused, the question of whether it is morally permissible to use AWT in lieu of abortion cannot be answered apart from an examination of the moral act from the perspective of the acting person.

It is generally understood that human acts are always performed for the sake of some end (Aquinas 2018, IaIIae, q. 1, a. 1). Human acts are morally good if they conform to right reason, “and right reason demands that actions be integrally good, that is, they be seriously defective in no way” (Long 2015, 98). As Steven Long notes, “The phrase ‘relation to right reason’ implies two terms and not merely one: something—something not simply reducible to reason—is in relation to reason. What the act is about in relation to reason materially includes the act itself and its integral nature” (Long 2015, 101). In other words, reason has its own rectitude that depends on its conformity with its desire of a due end, ⁴ and what is in relation to reason (which must necessarily be something other than reason) is the external act which, being something other than reason, has its own integral nature and object. If the integral nature of this act is so deprived of right reason in its very structure (e.g., lying), it can never be properly ordered to the rectitude of right reason. ⁵ Nevertheless, unlike lying, the use of AWT is not so deprived of right reason that it falls under negative precept.

When a doctor decides to use AWT to deliver a baby prematurely for some medically indicated reason, what morally specifies the act of relocating the child into the artificial womb? The first question that must be answered to resolve this question is whether the use of AWT is per se or per accidens ordered to the end of saving the life of the child. This is because, where an act is per se ordered to its end, as Long writes “the most formal, containing, and defining moral species is derived from its end (and the species derived from the object is then, as it were, simply a specific difference contained within and derived from the moral species of the end)” (Long 2015, 91). ⁶ As Long further notes, “one thing is said to be per se ordered to the other either if the achievement of one thing is absolutely required for the achievement of the other, or if one thing simply by its nature tends toward the achievement of another” (Long 2015, 94). Providing an example to illustrate this point, and one which is worth citing at length given that it is not far removed from the case under consideration, Long continues:

In the case of surgery, accordingly, we do not say that there are two simple acts with two distinct moral species: We do not say that first there is an act of opening the chest cavity (with the moral species of butchery) followed by an act of surgery (whose moral species is that of a medicinal or healing act)—but only one act, with one medicinal species. This is because where the object is per se ordered toward the end the most defining moral species is derived from the end. Since the end is medical, and since the object is naturally ordered to it (in this sense, naturally ordered in the sense that absolutely speaking one cannot gain access to the heart for the purposes of surgical repair without opening the chest cavity), the most formal species is derived from the end, and the moral species derived from the object [the context makes clear that this is the object of the external act] is contained within the species of the end, that is, this opening of the chest cavity is medical. (Long 2015, 94)

The act of opening the chest cavity in heart surgery is not a morally distinct act from the performance of the heart surgery itself. Opening the chest cavity to perform heart surgery is not an instance of performing a mutilation, which is intrinsically evil, ⁷ for the sake of performing heart surgery. Instead, opening the chest cavity is placed in its moral species by the end of heart surgery. Why is this the case? Because opening up the chest cavity is per se ordered to the end of heart surgery on account of the fact that the end of heart surgery requires the opening up of the chest cavity, and the act of opening the chest cavity is chosen precisely under the ratio of heart surgery. ⁸ Additionally, since the act of opening up the chest cavity is per se ordained to the end of heart surgery, the act is an essential determination of and formally contained under the moral species of the end. ⁹

Let us now return to the use of AWT to keep a prematurely delivered child alive. The child might be delivered prematurely for two reasons. On the one hand, he might be delivered prematurely because he will be unable to survive in his mother's womb and can only survive in an artificial womb. On the other hand, he might be delivered prematurely because his mother will be unable to survive if the pregnancy continues. In the former case, the removal of the conceptus from his mother's womb and placing him in an artificial womb is one morally unified act. This is akin to opening the chest cavity for the sake of performing heart surgery. Just as opening up the chest cavity is not desirable in itself, only intelligible in light of the end of heart surgery, and is not a distinct moral act from the act of heart surgery which would make it an act of mutilation for the sake of heart surgery, so too is the removal of the conceptus from his mother's womb an act that is not desirable in itself, only intelligible in light of the end of saving the conceptus’s life, and would not constitute a distinct moral act from the act of saving the conceptus’s life. This is because in both cases, the acts in question are per se ordered to their respective ends. As such, they are essential determinations of this formal end, specifying these ends. The act is properly described as one of saving the conceptus’s life via transferring the conceptus from his mother's womb to an artificial womb.

In the latter case, we have a complex act composed of two simple acts. In a complex act, the act receives two moral species from the two (or more) morally simple acts that make up the complex act. Saint Thomas uses the example of an adulterer who steals to commit adultery yet remains guilty of both theft and adultery because stealing is not per se ordered to adultery, and so theft is not an essential determination of the formal end of adultery (Aquinas 2018, IaIIae, q. 18, a. 7). In the latter case, we first have the removal of the conceptus from his mother's womb in order to save the life of the mother. This act is per se ordered to saving the mother's life. While removing the conceptus from his mother's womb is undesirable in itself, it is desirable with respect to the end of saving the mother's life. Once the conceptus is removed, there is a concern for keeping the conceptus alive. The conceptus is then transferred into an artificial womb. This is a second simple act that is per se ordered to keeping the conceptus alive. We thus have two moral acts, both of which are good, morally specified by their respective ends: the saving of the mother's life and the saving of the conceptus’s life. In either case, however, notice that partial ectogenesis is licit for the following reason: partial ectogenesis is chosen under the ratio of saving the life of the prematurely delivered conceptus and is per se ordered to keeping the prematurely delivered conceptus alive. As such, partial ectogenesis is an essential determination of the formal end of keeping the conceptus alive such that the moral act is best described as an act of keeping the prematurely delivered conceptus alive by means of transferring the prematurely delivered conceptus into an artificial womb. ¹⁰

In both cases described above, we have considered medically indicated partial ectogenesis. In both cases, partial ectogenesis is per se ordered to saving the conceptus’s life and as such is an essential determination of the formal end of saving the conceptus’s life. Our next step is to consider an act of elective partial ectogenesis (i.e., partial ectogenesis that is chosen apart from some medically necessary end). Is elective partial ectogenesis ever a morally acceptable means to arriving at a pregnant mother's intended end? In an act of elective partial ectogenesis, a pregnant mother decides to make use of AWT so that she may pursue some desired end. This end might be to pursue some career goal, and pursuit of this career goal may even be further subordinated to the end of financially supporting those children of hers that are already born. All of this is to say that the ends the pregnant mother may pursue may indeed be good. The pregnant mother's intention might be evil or selfish, in which case the act is morally defective on account of the agent's intention, but partial ectogenesis need not arise from evil intentions. ¹¹

To analyze elective partial ectogenesis itself then, let us consider a concrete example of a pregnant mother who decides to have her conceptus artificially gestated for the sake of continuing work so that she may continue financially supporting her family. The end in question is undoubtedly a good end, providing for her family who may otherwise not be able to provide for their necessities. Nevertheless, the question we must immediately ask is whether partial ectogenesis is per se ordered to this end. If the answer is yes, our inquiry will stop. Why? Because the end in question is good, and when an act is per se ordered to its end, the act is an essential determination of the end and is contained under the moral species of the end. If the answer is no, our inquiry continues further since we have a complex act composed of two simple acts which have distinct moral species. As Saint Thomas says, “when the [physical] object is not of itself ordained to the end, the specific difference derived from the object is not an essential determination of the species derived from the end” (Aquinas 2018, IaIIae, q 18, a. 7). There is an accidental unity but not a simple, formal unity.

In the case now under consideration, elective partial ectogenesis is not per se ordered to the pregnant mother's end of providing for her family. Provision for one's family does not require partial ectogenesis, nor does partial ectogenesis of its nature tend toward the provision of goods for one's family. Consequently, partial ectogenesis is not contained under or an essential determination of the end of providing goods for one's family. Thus, it cannot be a further specification of this morally good end. Elective partial ectogenesis is ordered only per accidens to the end of providing goods for one's family and so has a moral species distinct from this further end. Partial ectogenesis as such must be considered on its own terms. If one considers that a conceptus has a prima facie right to be gestated in his mother's womb, a right the Magisterium and Kaczor has affirmed, one soon recognizes that a conceptus cannot be deprived of the right to make use of his mother's womb qua womb for the sake of some accidental end.

An analogy with amputation may help illustrate the significance of this crucial point. Like the removal of one's limb, the physical act of depriving a conceptus from his mother's womb requires moral justification. The removal of one's limb on its own is repugnant to right reason as it violates bodily integrity, but when it is ordered to preserving the welfare of the whole individual (a per se ordering) because the limb is gangrenous, the physical act is morally specified by the end of life-saving. It is no longer an act of mutilation, in the moral sense, for the sake of saving one's life. Likewise, the physical act of removing a conceptus from his mother's womb requires moral justification. On its own, it is repugnant to right reason, but when it is ordered to preserving the life of the mother or the conceptus, the physical act is morally specified by the end of life saving (either the mother's or the conceptus’s). The person who removes a healthy kidney for the sake of making money to support his family, however, performs an act ordinarily repugnant to right reason for the sake of an end to which it is not per se, but per accidens, ordered. This is why his act is best described as an act of mutilation (in the moral and illicit sense), for the sake of providing for his family. Again, the pregnant mother who consents to elective partial ectogenesis performs an act ordinarily repugnant to right reason for the sake of an end to which the act is not per se but per accidens ordered. This is why her act is best described as the deprivation of her child's right to be gestated in her womb (formally and illicitly, and not simply materially, speaking), for the sake of providing for her family. Just as the physical act of removing a limb, even a healthy limb, ¹² is considered morally as either an amputation (licit) or a mutilation (illicit) depending on the act's relation to reason and its per se or per accidens ordering to the end, so too should the physical act of removing a conceptus from his mother's womb be considered morally as an illicit deprivation of the child's right to be gestated in his mother's womb or a licit act of life saving depending on the act's relation to reason and its per se or per accidens ordering to the given end.

Bearing the foregoing analysis in mind, what is to be said of elective partial ectogenesis in lieu of an abortion? First, we can say that elective partial ectogenesis is only ordered to the prevention of an abortion per accidens. Elective partial ectogenesis by nature does not prevent an abortion from occurring, nor does the avoidance of an elective abortion require an act of partial ectogenesis. All that is required to avoid an elective abortion is the free decision of the pregnant mother not to have an abortion. Thus, elective partial ectogenesis performed for the sake of avoiding an abortion is analogous to the case of the pregnant mother considered above with the central difference being that whereas partial ectogenesis is considered in one case for the sake of avoiding some evil, it is considered in another case for the advancement of some good. In either case, however, the removal of the conceptus from his mother's womb is per accidens ordered to the given end. As such, the moral species of the act of elective partial ectogenesis is not an essential determination of the end but has its own moral species distinct from the end. The act thus understood is best described morally as an act of depriving the child of his right to be gestated in his mother's womb for the sake of not aborting the child.

Second, as we have already alluded to, the pregnant mother who considers partial ectogenesis in lieu of an abortion is distinguished further from the pregnant mother who considers partial ectogenesis for the sake of supporting her family for the following reason. The pregnant mother who considers partial ectogenesis for the sake of supporting her family considers this act with respect to an end that may or may not come about through the free decision of her will. In other words, her ability or inability to support her family absent elective partial ectogenesis may not be due to a freely chosen decision on her part. On the contrary, the pregnant mother who considers partial ectogenesis in lieu of an abortion considers the act with respect to an end that can come about only by a willfully chosen act on her part. She desires to undergo elective partial ectogenesis so that she may not perform the sinful act of abortion. This case is analogous to another act considered in the tradition, of a man who castrates himself so that he may persevere more easily in chastity. He desires to undergo some natural evil for the sake of avoiding a spiritual evil. Citing the authority of the Council of Nicaea, Saint Thomas says in response, “Now it is always possible to further one's spiritual welfare otherwise than by cutting off a member, because sin is always subject to the will: and consequently in no case is it allowable to maim oneself, even to avoid any sin whatever” (Aquinas 2018, IIaIIae, q. 65, a. 1). ¹³ We might argue that just as it not permissible to mutilate oneself for the sake of avoiding sins against chastity, mutatis mutandi it not permissible to deprive a child from his mother's womb for the sake of avoiding sins against justice.

Finally, Kaczor concludes too quickly from the fact that because the beginning of a causal chain of events which may lead to the danger of death of the fetus may be either voluntary or natural, that the details of the causal chain are therefore not morally decisive in whether the elective use of AWT is permissible. We might first observe the examples that Kaczor offers to make this argument. On the one hand we have a pregnant mother who voluntarily smokes, which then causes her to start dying from lung cancer, and on the other hand we have a pregnant woman who begins dying after getting into a car crash that she caused. According to Kaczor, the lines between a voluntary and natural cause of death to the fetus are blurred here. He does not say so explicitly, but presumably in both cases it would be permissible to transfer the fetus into an artificial womb. Certainly, this is true, but this is so because the mother is dying in both cases. Once the mother begins dying, assuming her dying is irreversible, there is no way to prevent the causal sequence from affecting the fetus. However, a pregnant mother who intends to procure abortion can indeed never elect to start the causal sequence of aborting her child. It is hard to see the analogy between Kaczor's cases and the case of a mother electing to transfer her fetus into an artificial womb in lieu of an abortion. If we wanted to tighten the analogy between the cases, we might ask if it is acceptable for a pregnant mother to make use of AWT so that she may continue smoking or drinking without causing harm to her child. It would seem utterly repugnant to reason, in this case, for a mother to relocate her child into an artificial womb simply so she could not harm her child through drinking or smoking. It is repugnant to reason because she could decide to not engage in these activities throughout the course of her pregnancy. And if this is true in this case, there is no reason why this would not be true of the pregnant mother who could decide not to procure an abortion in the first place.

What of the doctor who is asked by a pregnant mother to transfer her child into an artificial womb so that she may end her pregnancy without having to resort to an abortion? May this doctor licitly perform said action? Motivation for an affirmative response may be sought in the reasoning of Pope Pius XII on whether a doctor is permitted to put a patient into a deep narcosis when a dying patient who refuses to fulfill his duties beforehand requests it. Pius XII states that “[The doctor] may consent to it without making himself guilty of formal collaboration in the sin committed. This sin does not derive from the act of narcotization, but rather from the immoral wish of the patient: for whether he is given narcosis or not, his behavior will not have changed: he will not have discharged his duties” (cited in Pontifical Council Cor Unum 1981, no. 4.5). The primary disanalogy between the case under review by Pope Pius XII and the one we are now concerned with is that the act of narcotization is per se ordered to putting the dying patient in a state of deep narcosis (and in the stronger teleological sense as narcotization is naturally ordered to narcosis), and can be performed under the ratio of the end of putting the patient in a state of deep narcosis, with the lack of fulfillment of the patient's duties being an unintended side effect on the doctor's part. On the contrary, the act of removing a conceptus from his mother's womb is per accidens ordered to avoiding an abortion and, as such, constitutes an act of depriving a conceptus of his right to be gestated in his mother's womb, an illicit means, for the sake of the mother avoiding a sin against justice. The doctor does not perform any illicit act in the former but does so in the latter.

AWT and the Distortion of Reality

After having spent considerable time in the last section analyzing elective partial ectogenesis from an action theoretical perspective, we now shift to looking at how the elective use of AWT contributes to our further cultural distortion of reality.

Distorting the Distinctly Maternal and the Elimination of Sexual Difference

Opposition to the elective use of AWT has not only come from Catholic bioethicists, ¹⁴ but also from some secular feminist ethicists. Although distinct from a more Catholic, natural law approach to moral issues, much of the “eco-feminist” reasoning used by Maureen Sander-Stuadt elucidates quite well some of the problems with the use of AWT. Coming from an “ethics of care” approach that emphasizes “the relevance of sex to moral reasoning” (Sander-Staudt 2006, 117), ¹⁵ Sander-Staudt concludes:

Ultimately, feminists have reason to entertain moral approval only for “therapeutic” uses of AWT that aim at saving spontaneously miscarried fetuses, and to stand against the development and use of full ectogenesis on the principle that it is inherently demeaning and disempowering to women as biological mothers. Both culturally and as individuals, mothers and children alike may suffer real loss the day that it finally can be said that the first human child has been “of machine born.” (Sander-Staudt 2006, 127)

Sander-Staudt levies several arguments against AWT, all of which revolve around its deleterious effects on the wholly unique nature of the mother–child gestational relationship. Sander-Staudt identifies many ways in which AWT could be inadequate as compared to natural gestation. I list here only a few: the immunities conferred on the child via gestation and breast-feeding, which some women can only offer via gestating; the positive effects of carrying a child in utero on the mother; and the psychological and emotional relationship that is fostered and developed between a pregnant mother and her child. Supposing AWT could be so advanced as to make up for all these deficiencies, there remain critical challenges in trying to develop AWT so as to mimic even the nonphysical benefits provided to both child and mother. This is maximally true of the fetus whose perceptual life we are unable to access. As Sander-Staudt writes, “Absent [the fetus’s] perspectival access, women who have experienced pregnancy may be able to fill in part of the picture from their perspective. This perspective would always be relational, but it would always be a one-way perspective of this relationship, and thus incomplete. We seem unable to fully anticipate the potential damage to a fetus incubated artificially” (Sander-Staudt 2006, 120). To put the point more sharply, the elective use of AWT could be a valid alternative to abortion only if artificial gestation could be proven to retain all the benefits of natural gestation without inducing any additional harms. Since it is impossible to fully ascertain the potential psychological and emotional damages of AWT on the part of the conceptus, the prerequisite moral certitude required to electively relocate a child into an artificial womb will necessarily be missing. Moreover, it is difficult to see how the loss of the intimate mother–child gestational relationship and the psychological effects that relationship has on the pregnant mother could be compensated for by AWT. ¹⁶ It is a true loss for which there can be no artificial replacement.

Furthermore, Sander-Staudt adds how the replacement of the gestational womb with an artificial womb serves to engender a reductionist view of the womb and the female body:

Ectogenesis treats women's reproductive biology in the way described by Plumwood by substituting a female body with a machine void of consciousness, and subject to man-made controls and purposes. The idea that the mother–child relation in pregnancy could even begin to be adequately simulated by a machine implies a problematic Cartesian model of mind and matter that portrays pregnancy as a mere mechanical process. AWT is a technology that objectifies and produces only a crude facsimile of a woman's body. AWT objectifies women's bodies in a very literal sense by reducing a mother to a body part, the womb, only to simulate this body part by constructing a disembodied, nonrational, mechanical object. (Sander-Staudt 2006, 122)

Partial and complete elective ectogenesis foster an environment in which a mother's womb is seen as an arbitrary place for gestation. Although a mother's womb may be the natural place for gestation, the elective use of AWT would render this natural connection a mere biological accident. Consequently, as Christopher White notes, “By rendering the womb an arbitrary location, ectogenesis risks rendering biological ties unnecessary” (White 2015, 1). A baby could just as easily be gestated using AWT as in his mother's womb, and there is no need to assign any greater normative value to one over the other.

Moreover, claims like Austriaco's that “if made readily available and if it is cost-effective, artificial womb technology, in principle, should allow a woman to exercise her right to bodily autonomy and allow her child to live out his right to life” (Austriaco 2021, 142) betray (albeit unwittingly) a problematically erroneous view of female reproduction and autonomy accepted by certain radical feminists. According to feminist Rosemarie Tong, one well-known radical feminist, Shulaminth Firestone, “claimed that gender equality requires ectogenesis and the destruction of the biological family” (Tong 2006, 64). This follows from the fact that Firestone “was one of the first feminists to analyze gender inequality on the basis of biology itself, specifically, the biology of procreation. She envisions sex class as springing directly from a biological reality that configures men and women differently, denying them equal privilege” (Sander-Staudt 2006, 116). ¹⁷ For radical feminists like Firestone, true bodily autonomy requires liberation from the constraints of procreation and childbearing. While Austriaco would most certainly disagree with this sentiment, his poor wording unfortunately plays into the radical feminist logic by implying that there indeed is some tension between a child's right to life and a mother's right to bodily autonomy, which elective partial ectogenesis could somehow balance. In one sense, a pregnant mother's freedom may be restricted because of her pregnancy. She can no longer engage in all the activities she could when she was not pregnant, or indulge in the same diet, etc. Yet the restrictions experienced because of pregnancy are akin to restrictions experienced because of parenthood or marriage. That is to say, although parenthood restricts a parent from spending all their time as they wish, it frees a parent to experience the unique character of paternal or maternal love, or while marriage restricts a spouse from engaging in romantic relationships with other individuals, it frees the spouse for the good of spousal love and intimacy. The restrictions pregnant mothers may face are real, but they are a consequence of an authentic and unique good pregnant mothers enjoy, namely, the good of the gestational bond. If autonomy were an inviolable good, these restrictions would be unacceptable. However, autonomy, like freedom is ordered to the good and finds its fullest perfection not in itself, but in its being ordered to the human good. In this sense, childbearing is not a genuine restriction on female autonomy or freedom but an authentic expression of it. ¹⁸

Finally, should AWT be used in lieu of abortion in the name of bodily autonomy, the distinction between the sexes which display their complementary beauty will soon be seriously distorted. The distinctively beautiful maternal mode of reproduction that natural gestation bears witness to (both to the mother and to society) would be thrown away. In losing natural gestation, society loses a sense of the distinctly maternal, finding only androgynous parents who nurture their children in no distinctively sexed mode. Throughout the reproductive process they relate to the child equally, each supplying gametes, but neither having an intimate gestational bond with the child (or only partially so in the case of partial ectogenesis). This is one of the reasons why, according to Sander-Staudt, certain liberal feminists would be in favor of AWT:

First, artificial wombs could ease the dilemma of having to define equality in terms of the differences or similarities between men and women. Ectogenesis promises to tip the scales in favor of male and female sameness. Since pregnancy and birth are the lynchpins of male/female difference, ectogenesis could create a kind of “sameness” between men and women hitherto unknown… In lasting ways ectogenesis could provide men and women greater reproductive equality by removing the exclusive biological connection between femininity and birth. (Sander-Staudt 2006, 111–112)

In a society where gender theory has increasingly sought to eradicate sexual difference, thereby destroying the distinctly feminine as well as the distinctly masculine, one wonders if the promotion of AWT in lieu of abortion in the name of female autonomy would not continue to perpetuate such a view. Indeed, even prolife women themselves recognize the use of AWT in lieu of abortion to be a dereliction of their responsibilities as mothers, a repudiation of the feminine. As Leslie Cannold discovered in a survey of prolife women, asking them if AWT would be a legitimate alternative to abortion in the event of an unplanned pregnancy:

Ectogenesis becomes, according to [the prolife] view, even more problematic than adoption because evacuating a child to an ectogenetic womb means that not only is a woman rejecting her moral responsibility to raise her own child, but she is also rejecting her responsibility to gestate her own child. Thus, while for women in favor of abortion rights, ectogenesis is problematic because it preserves the life of the fetus, and with that life, a woman's maternal responsibilities, for women opposed to abortion rights, ectogenesis is a concern because it continues to enable women to avoid their responsibility to gestate, bear, and raise the children they conceive. (Cannold 2006, 56)

Therefore, Catholic bioethicists and moral theologians should be wary of arguing in favor of the use of AWT in lieu of abortion, carefully heeding the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith's advice in Dignitas infinita.

Therefore, all attempts to obscure reference to the ineliminable sexual difference between man and woman are to be rejected: “We cannot separate the masculine and the feminine from God's work of creation, which is prior to all our decisions and experiences, and where biological elements exist which are impossible to ignore.” Only by acknowledging and accepting this difference in reciprocity can each person fully discover themselves, their dignity, and their identity. (Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith 2024, no. 59)

The Abolition of Man

All of what has been said in the previous section falls under a general trend in recent decades to put the whole natural order under the scalpel of man, thereby distorting the distinction between nature and artifice. The attempt to master nature and supplement it with artificial technique turns out to be, as C.S. Lewis noted in his The Abolition of Man, an attempt to master man: “There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man's side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car” (Lewis 2001, 58). If we are to permit the elective use of AWT, even in lieu of abortion, thereby saying that a pregnant mother can sever the most sacred and natural of human relationships that exists—the gestational relationship between mother and child—are there any natural relationships we can continue to uphold as intrinsically inviolable? If the first relationship all men and women have, the one that exists with their mothers in their mothers’ wombs, can be done away with, what human relationship remains sacred? If this human relationship becomes outsourced to technology, what remains distinctively human about this relationship? The elective use of AWT, in the final analysis, turns out to be the first step (if not the last) in man's conquest of nature which “turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man” (Lewis 2001, 68).

A society which sees AWT as a legitimate alternative to natural gestation, especially in the name of autonomy, is one which sees human nature itself as an impediment. In his classic work, Begotten or Made?, the Anglican ethicist Oliver O’Donovan recognizes that man's mastery over himself is exercised, ironically, in the name of freedom:

Medical technique, too, has been shaped and developed with the intention of fulfilling aspirations for freedom, freedom in this case from necessities imposed upon us by our bodily nature. But not until recently (and this fact more than anything else bears witness to the importance of Christian influence upon medical practice) has society ventured to think that medical technique ought to be used to overcome not only the necessities of disease but also necessities of health (such as pregnancy). (O’Donovan 2022, 8)

Nowhere in Begotten or Made? does O’Donovan discuss the possibility of AWT, but what other piece of technology would these words better apply to? If AWT ended the abortion debate between pro-abortion and prolife advocates, it is only because both parties would have come to agree on the fundamentally flawed premise that a real tension exists between a pregnant mother's bodily autonomy (in its authentic sense) and the unborn child's right to life. As such, a pregnant mother's bodily autonomy would consist in freedom from biological necessity. The only distinction between the two views would be that whereas prolife individuals such as O’Donovan would regard the freedom from the biological necessity of pregnancy as a “freedom” from the necessities of health, radical feminists such as Firestone would regard pregnancy as a necessity of disease. ¹⁹ While AWT may have its legitimate uses in cases where a prematurely delivered child must be kept alive, this is far from granting that AWT may end the abortion debate. And it must certainly not end the abortion debate on the prolife side, lest we are willing to grant that a pregnant mother's autonomy can find its fullest expression in severing the natural gestational bond by means other than an abortion.

The Lesser Evil as the Enemy of the Good

In short, the ready optimism of certain prolife Catholics to accept elective partial ectogenesis as a potential way to end the abortion debate is concerning. While it is one thing to accept legitimate uses of AWT in cases of medical necessity, it is another thing to grant that a pregnant mother may use AWT in lieu of abortion. Although there may be some truth to the aphorism that one should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, there is a lurking sense that some have accepted the good as the enemy of the lesser evil. By this I mean that in the name of avoiding grave evils, like that of abortion, some have accepted the performance of lesser evils as an alternative to doing what is right and just. To be perfectly clear, Kaczor and Austriaco do not accept the performance of lesser evils for the sake of avoiding grave evils, as neither see elective partial ectogenesis as intrinsically evil. That being said, if the unborn do have a prima facie right to be carried in their mothers’ wombs, as the Magisterium of the Catholic Church has begun to articulate more clearly, then one cannot justify ripping the conceptus out of his mother's womb by merely appealing to the fact that this was done so that his mother may not freely commit a grave sin. This can be justified no more than the self-castration of a man who desires to avoid sins against chastity. He has a prima facie duty to preserve his bodily integrity. His bodily integrity cannot be disposed of simply for the sake of avoiding sinful acts which are subject to his own will. The unborn have a right to life, and this indeed includes the prima facie right to be carried in their mothers’ wombs. This is the good, and the lesser evil of elective partial ectogenesis ought not to be favored as a “middle-ground” with the graver evil of abortion.

We have focused so much on our technological progress, and the novel ways we can apply our medical technique, that we have forgotten to pause and seriously consider whether this progress makes, “human life on earth ‘more human’ in every aspect of that life?” (John Paul II 1979, no. 15). To conclude with the words of Saint John Paul II, we must ask the following with respect to the technology we develop:

Does it make it more “worthy of man”? There can be no doubt that in various aspects it does. But the question keeps coming back with regard to what is most essential—whether in the context of this progress man, as man, is becoming truly better, that is to say more mature spiritually, more aware of the dignity of his humanity, more responsible, more open to others, especially the neediest and the weakest, and readier to give and to aid all. (John Paul II 1979, no. 15)