It seems that much progress is being made on creating an artificial womb. This could be a very good thing, of course, as it could permit women to save endangered pregnancies. But it could also be the vehicle carrying biotechnologists from researching on cloned human embryos in Petri dishes into gestating clones to late embryo and fetal stages. In this regard, it is worth nothing that experiments have already been conducted by which human embryos were implanted in artificial wombs and developed for six days.
The uses of gestated but unborn clones could be many and varied, and potentially more useful than merely experimenting with stem cells: Drug testing in place of animals; harvesting cloned organs for transplantation; learning how to genetically engineer the human embryo; learning how to safely conduct reproductive cloning, among others.
Don’t forget, such experiments are already explicitly legalized in New Jersey, which legalized cloning, implanting, and gestation of human clones to the moment of birth.
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