Drawing on Public Responses to Ectogenesis to Understand ItsSocietal Impact

A new and socially disruptive technology ectogenesis, the gestationof a fetus outside the human body, poses exciting and unexploredquestions around social response and long-term societal impact. Assuch my research seeks to identify and understand which scientific,social, and advocacy groups have interests in ectogenesis and howthey understand and perceive the technology. It also seeks tounderstand the socio-economic considerations when looking atcommunication, implementation and accessibility to such technology.And finally, to explore what participatory scenarios, simpledescriptions of possible futures communicated to participants throughvarious mediums, tell us about the potential reception of thistechnology. The intent of this research would be to fill a knowledgegap within ectogenesis research on social response by centring itsapproach from a feminist approach, rather than the bioethics andmoral philosophical lens that has dominated the field to this point.The social response data gathered in this study has many possibleapplications including informing future legal and governmentalpolicies, highlighting potential socio-economic inequalities in advanceof implementing this socially disruptive technology and expanding onthe foundational work of Feminist Science and Technology scholarsFirestone and Haraway in a modern context.