Reproductive ageing and conflicting clocks: King Midas’ touch

The population attempting pregnancy and having babies is ageing. Gynaecological and obstetric complications worsen with age. Maternity services are struggling. Increasing rates of infertility and complications are not matched by the marvels in the laboratory. This paper argues that assisted reproduction treatment has had a damaging social impact. Despite its public acclaim, it helps few and fails many more. The assisted reproduction industry could take a new and revolutionary direction towards empowering men to experience pregnancy, producing babies from artificial gametes, with a final goal being the liberation of both women and men from the burdens and dangers of pregnancy through the development of artificial wombs.This paper seeks to give a brief explanation as to why women are having children older and discusses how reproduction technologies have contributed to this trend. It argues that reproduction technologies is not a panacea for this problem and has in fact contributed to it. We suggest that as a means of promoting reproduction equality between the sexes, science needs to extend the reproduction experience to men, as well as developing artificial gametes and wombs.VIDEO LINK: http://sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1401028