This story from Live Action is among the most disturbing, dystopian stories you will ever see.
Anna Smajdor, of the University of Olso, wrote in the journal Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics that women who are brain dead shouldn't have their wombs going to waste, when people who want children can use them. "We already know that pregnancies can be successfully carried to term in brain-dead women," she said. "There is no obvious medical reason why initiating such pregnancies would not be possible."
But the ethics of such a decision seems to have overlooked by Smajdor.
This bioethicist has gone beyond the realm of could and takes it further by arguing that you should use comatose women as fetal containers to grow babies for others.
Though women with PVS could possibly recover, Smajdor argued this kind of surrogacy should still be allowed. "I suggest that – all other things being equal – it should be an option for anyone who wishes to avoid the risks and burdens of gestating a foetus in their own body," she said, adding, "I suggest that brain stem dead men would also have the potential to gestate, meaning that the pool of potential donors is further increased – and that certain feminist concerns might thus be assuaged."
Yes, you read that right.
In the name of equality, this doctor thinks that we should also implant pregnancies into men!
The donor would have to give consent ahead of time, Smajdor said, but overall, she said government policies should support it. "States and health services should adapt their policies and procedures to allow for WBGD among other donation options," she said. "If WBGD is viewed as a straightforward means of facilitating safer reproduction, and avoiding the moral problems of surrogacy, we should be ready to embrace it as a logical and beneficial extension of activities that we already treat as being morally unproblematic."
Smajdor acknowledged the process is "straightforwardly the use of the body as a foetal container." But like many apologists for surrogacy, she still argued it should be allowed if the donor agrees — despite the inherently exploitative nature of surrogacy.
Surrogacy itself is already morally dubious and controversial.
But to use a brain-dead woman's body literally as a baby-making machine and "foetal container"??
The dehumanization of both individuals, the woman, and the baby is complete.
Though someone may have consented beforehand, there would be no way to ensure they still were willing to have their body used as an incubator, and it only further leads to the commodification of children — with women's bodies forced to be the tools to create the products wealthy adults want.
