Sounds like any widespread use is still a ways out if we're in the "setting rules for trials" phase now, but I'm curious what impact artificial wombs would have on abortion laws in the US, if any.
The non-religious aspects of the abortion debate partly hinge on this idea of fetal viability (specifically, the time at which most fetuses have a high chance of survival outside the womb), and I could imagine artificial wombs bringing that viability threshold down a bit. Which then opens the door to a whole other debate about whether terminating a pregnancy could (or should) involve transplantation. I know some current bioethics argue that abortion is currently permissible because the death of the fetus is merely a side effect of terminating a pregnancy, rather than its goal...
The non-religious aspects of the abortion debate partly hinge on this idea of fetal viability (specifically, the time at which most fetuses have a high chance of survival outside the womb), and I could imagine artificial wombs bringing that viability threshold down a bit. Which then opens the door to a whole other debate about whether terminating a pregnancy could (or should) involve transplantation. I know some current bioethics argue that abortion is currently permissible because the death of the fetus is merely a side effect of terminating a pregnancy, rather than its goal...