The Atlantic

Artificial Wombs Birth a Complex Controversy

Plus: The paradox of protecting houses of worship
Source: Sigbe Øllgaard / Getty

Sign up for Conor’s newsletter here.

What do you think about artificial wombs? Are they ethical? Desirable? Should they be a priority for scientists? If they become advanced enough to be viable, would you ever use one? How would a world in which they were available differ from ours? Any thoughts on this subject are welcome.

Email your answers to conor@theatlantic.com. I’ll publish a selection of answers in Friday’s newsletter.

Conversations of Note

As you may have guessed, one of last week’s most unexpected conversation topics was artificial wombs. It began when Elon Musk tweeted about declining births and his fears about population collapse. “If there aren’t enough people for Earth,” he wrote, “then there definitely won’t be enough for Mars.” The tech investor Sahil Lavingia replied, “We should be investing in technology that makes having kids much faster/easier/cheaper/more accessible. Synthetic wombs, etc.”

Charlie Warzel that leap to a “very elaborate, hypothetical-but-definitely-paradigm-shifting, futuristic technology

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking
The Atlantic3 min read
They Rode the Rails, Made Friends, and Fell Out of Love With America
The open road is the great American literary device. Whether the example is Jack Kerouac or Tracy Chapman, the national canon is full of travel tales that observe America’s idiosyncrasies and inequalities, its dark corners and lost wanderers, but ult
The Atlantic5 min readAmerican Government
What Nikki Haley Is Trying to Prove
This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Nikki Haley faces terrible odds in her home state of

Related Books & Audiobooks