Welcome back. I’m Adeline Atlas, 11-time published author, and this is The Elimination of Gender—a series investigating the structural and biological dismantling of sex and identity. In this video, we’re examining the rise of artificial womb technology and the radical question it forces us to ask: if a human being is grown, not born, is it still the same kind of human?

The science of ectogenesis—the ability to grow a fetus entirely outside the human body—is no longer a futuristic concept. It’s here. In 2022, a project called EctoLife went viral with a concept design that proposed growing up to 30,000 babies per year in artificial womb facilities. Although the facility itself has not yet been built, the underlying science is grounded in real-world biomedical progress. Scientists have already sustained premature lambs in fluid-filled biobags and have developed ex vivo uterine systems for rodents. The next logical step, many believe, is to transition human gestation into artificial environments that are safer, more predictable, and entirely programmable.

The marketing pitch is clinical: reduce maternal mortality, solve infertility, eliminate pregnancy complications. But behind the medical justification lies something deeper and more existential: the decoupling of life from the human body. Artificial wombs are the ultimate expression of gender elimination, because they render the female body unnecessary for reproduction. No more egg fertilization, no more gestation, no more labor. Just a pod, a genome, and a simulation of motherhood via controlled lighting, movement, and auditory stimulation. The female form becomes optional. And if reproduction can be outsourced to a machine, so can parenthood.

One of the most controversial proposals tied to this technology is something called Whole Body Gestational Donation. Published in a respected medical journal, the proposal suggested that brain-dead women could be kept alive on life support and used as surrogate hosts for fetuses. In this scenario, the woman’s body would effectively be a rented vessel. There would be no consent, no participation, no consciousness—just a functioning biological environment for a developing embryo. The authors argue that this would provide a "natural" womb without the risks of conscious pregnancy. But the ethical implications are staggering.

Is this medicine, or mechanization? When we reduce reproduction to biology alone—stripping it of volition, experience, and consciousness—what kind of life are we creating? And more to the point: does the origin of that life impact its essence?

In many religious and spiritual traditions, the soul is not a biological artifact. It is something breathed into the body, something woven into the flesh during gestation—often at a specific moment, like quickening or birth. In Hebrew tradition, the soul—neshamah—enters when God breathes into the nostrils. In Islam, it’s believed the soul enters the fetus at 120 days. In Eastern traditions, the soul is tied to karma, intention, and cosmic rhythm. But in all of these, one thing is consistent: the soul requires a vessel, and that vessel is formed through the natural process of conception and gestation. So the question becomes: when the process is no longer natural, what happens to the soul?

If a child is constructed—not conceived—in a lab, does the traditional process of soul embodiment still apply? Can we assume that a lab-grown child has the same spiritual infrastructure as a naturally born one? Or are we entering territory where the human form is manufactured without the metaphysical substance that traditionally accompanies it?

There is no scientific test for the soul. But the concern isn’t just theological. It’s psychological. It’s social. If enough people are born from machines, not mothers, the human species will undergo a shift not just in biology—but in emotional development. Womb time matters. It’s not just where bodies form—it’s where the first emotional bonds are created. A fetus hears the mother’s voice, feels her heartbeat, is affected by her hormones, and is shaped by her state of mind. These early exposures set the stage for attachment, trust, and emotional regulation. Remove that, and you risk creating humans who have never been emotionally connected before birth.

Supporters of artificial wombs argue that these factors can be simulated. Music, motion, warmth, and even artificial voices can be programmed into the pod. But simulation is not the same as origin. A machine cannot grieve. It cannot hope. It cannot fear or love. It cannot offer its internal state as nourishment for the forming psyche. It can only replicate the signals. And if a generation is raised without that initial emotional imprint, what long-term effects might emerge?

The implications stretch beyond the child. Artificial wombs redefine parenthood entirely. If gestation can be outsourced, what does it mean to be a mother? Or a father? Do we begin to select traits like we select phone settings—hair color, height, IQ range, disease resistance? Do we reduce reproduction to design? In that world, children are not born. They are ordered, manufactured, and upgraded.

This isn’t speculation. Companies like Genomic Prediction already offer polygenic embryo screening for intelligence and disease risk. CRISPR gene editing continues to advance, and in some jurisdictions, legal frameworks for designer babies are being quietly debated. When combined with ectogenesis, the result is a controlled, corporate approach to reproduction—one that bypasses nature, risk, and uncertainty entirely.

And with that, gender dissolves further. If nobody needs to carry a child, then there is no biological imperative for sex differentiation. Parenthood becomes a technical role. Men and women become designations, not functions. And children—whether grown in pods or printed from gametes—are no longer the outcome of love or biology, but of industrial production.

This raises urgent legal and philosophical questions. Do lab-grown children have the same rights as naturally conceived ones? What if their embryos are altered? What if they are raised entirely by AI systems or institutional frameworks? Will governments regulate artificial reproduction, or commercialize it? Will poor families be outpriced from gene-optimized babies while elites breed designer generations?

There is already precedent. In history, reproductive control has always been a tool of power—from forced sterilizations to eugenics programs. Artificial wombs don’t remove that risk—they expand it. The ability to grow a population without needing women opens the door to centralized reproductive control. In countries with demographic collapse, this might be framed as a solution. But once reproduction is institutionalized, birth becomes bureaucracy—and control over who lives, dies, or gets made becomes political.

And the deepest question still remains: is a human born from a lab still human in the fullest sense? Or are they something else? Something adjacent—but altered. We may find that what we’ve created are not children in the traditional sense, but post-humans. Fully formed, but lacking the mystical origin that has, for millennia, been the invisible foundation of personhood.

As artificial womb technology advances, we are not just changing how babies are made. We are changing what a human is. Gender, family, conception, birth, emotion, soul—all are disrupted. And what emerges may look like us. But its essence, its development, and its bonds to the human past may be forever severed.