7 ms·
In case you're wondering, the study's authors point out: > Our goal is not to extend the current limits of viability, but rather to offer the potential for imp
by jawns 10y ago
In case you're wondering, the study's authors point out:
> Our goal is not to extend the current limits of viability, but rather to offer the potential for improved outcomes for those infants who are already being routinely resuscitated and cared for in neonatal intensive care units.
One of the biggest current problems with pre-term babies, the study notes, is a respiratory condition called bronchopulmonary dysplasia:
> an arrest in lung development secondary to premature transition from liquid to gas ventilation
So having the lambs (and, eventually, the preterm infants) remain in a liquid environment allows their immature lungs to continue developing, so that when they eventually transition to gas ventilation (breathing air), their lungs are able to function correctly.
- omginternets 10y ago>Our goal is not to extend the current limits of viability In the interest of looking at thing squarely in the face, this can eventually (and therefore will) be used to extend the "current limits of viability". It's important not to put blinders on because this has a very real impact on medical ethics. Is it ethical, for instance, to develop human embryos outside of the womb for convenience?
- tormeh 10y ago>Is it ethical, for instance, to develop human embryos outside of the womb for convenience? Why not, assuming outcome is identical?
- omginternets 10y ago>assuming outcome is identical Well sure, if we're assuming there's no problem, then there's on problem, but that's a bit ... circular... Moreover, there's a mountain of evidence showing that prenatal environment shapes a large swath of physical and psychological traits.
- derefr 10y agoThat mountain of evidence mostly says that the in vivo prenatal environment is kind of... awful, though. As in, mother and foetus competing for nutrients with better maternal genes resulting in better defenses against the placental "parasite", and thus worse developmental outcomes; and better foetal genes resulting in better parasitic strategies to penetrate the uterine wall, and thus worse perinatal health outcomes for the mother. I'd honestly stake >$10k, at this point, on the hypothesis that "growing children from embroyos in vitro, hooked up to an unlimited nutrient drip" will result in children much healthier than "regular" children, along every axis we can think of. (Presuming, of course, that we first figure out every micro-nutrient such a drip would be required to provide.)
- SamReidHughes 10y agoWhat would happen though is eventually humans would lose the ability to naturally produce children.
- derefr 10y agoWhat is "naturally?" At some point in technological progress, we need to build machines to have children. But go a bit further along the line, and maybe we'd find the human body automatically building the machine that builds the human body—in effect, laying eggs.
- badosu 10y ago> At some point in technological progress, we need to build machines to have children Why?
- SamReidHughes 10y agoTo outbreed the bad guys.
- derefr 10y agoEr, sorry, I just meant that as "at some [early] point along the timeline of the possible developments in biomedical technology, the world would look like one where—at least early adopters—would need a machine to make children." I didn't mean to imply that there's some sort of imperative to go toward that point.
- nkrisc 10y agoAssuming identical outcomes, perhaps there's no issue, but you don't make the leap to identical outcomes without first progressing through outcomes that are probably worse to begin with.
- BronSteeDiam 10y agoHaving just had our first child, I see a lot of room for improvement. Identical outcomes is a low bar, in the long-term. So then the question becomes, is the short-term pain worth a much safer future. One of the interesting things about humans is we're all born preterm, because of our large heads and narrow hips. So you can potentially extended gestation by another term.
- Chaebixi 10y agoBecause, over the long term, it would reduce the selective pressure on the ability to gestate embryos in vivo, unnecessarily increasing dependence on technology. We should try to avoid adding extinction to the list of consequences of the collapse of technological civilization.
- mrfusion 10y agoProviding eyeglasses reduces the selective pressure for good eyesight.
- wtbob 10y agoThat's actually something I worry about. I'm blind without my glasses, seriously, debilitatingly blind. With them, of course, I have better-than-perfect (for some value of 'perfect') vision. Should I have children? Is it ethical to do so? I honestly don't know.
- libc 10y agoWhat is your specific visual condition, if you don't mind my asking. Most people who I'd characterize as "debilitatingly blind" are lucky if they get any benefit from conventional eyeglasses, let alone "better-than-perfect" vision. I have a significant visual impairment myself (myopia, aphakia, and nystagmus) but I wouldn't put myself in that category.
- wtbob 10y agoAstigmatism and severe myopia. They're easily correctable, but without glasses I can't see more than about three inches from my nose. At normal viewing distances I simply cannot even see things other people can see, like letters, small animals or children &c. Without glasses I'd be severely crippled. I've conducted a few experiments trying to move around in public without them, and it's beyond frightening.
- 10y ago
- rosser 10y agoThat's ... quite an assumption.
- return0 10y agoWhat if it's provably beneficial/better?
- omginternets 10y agoWhat if it isn't?
- return0 10y agoIf it isnt it won't be used. No technology is adopted if it doesnt improve on current state of the art.
- repsilat 10y agoMore interesting to me is the way it might change the abortion debate. If it were safe and not invasive for the mother to "donate" their not-yet-a-baby, is it moral to simply terminate the pregnancy? If there is a long waiting list of childless couples waiting to adopt, can donating an unwanted zygote be compared to postmortem organ donation?
- dragonwriter 10y agoYou can't improve outcomes without altering the limits on viability, unless the technique happens to have a hard cutoff in utility at or after the point currently considered "viable". Viability is, after all, simply a characterization of where the combination of all relevant factors points to a certain level of expected outcome; improving any aspect of outcomes also expands viability, generally.
- derefr 10y agoJust because you're doing X doesn't mean that you've set out to do X. Sometimes it's the goal, and not the action itself, that determines the ethical implications of an action.
- dragonwriter 10y agoNo, the goal may determine someone's moral judgement of the actor, but the ethical implications of an action come from the outcomes (at a minimum, those that are reasonably foreseeable), not just the motivation.