Woke Transhumanism Ushers in Age of Frankenstein Science™ by Advocating 'Zombie Pregnancies'

Philosopher Anna Smajdor calls for brain-dead women to 'donat[e] their whole bodies for gestational purposes': welcome to the BORG age

Last year, I saw something that made me sick before it truly worried me: an academic paper entitled, ‘Whole body gestational donation’, which appeared in the Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 44 (2023): pp. 113-124.

Meet Anna Smajdor, professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo, Norway. According to her faculty profile, Ms. Smajdor studied ‘philosophy for my first degree, at Edinburgh University. It was here that I first became interested in questions about the interaction between philosophy, science and ethics. I got my PhD from Imperial College, London. Prior to coming to UiO, I was lecturer in ethics at the University of East Anglia (UK).’

Her (?) main interests are

ethical questions related to medicine, innovation and the life-sciences. My PhD thesis was an analysis of the ethical and legal implications of artificial gametes (sperm and eggs manufactured in the laboratory). I have published widely on this topic, and on many related issues in reproductive ethics. I also have broader interests in a variety of bioethical topics, including morality and nature, and human relationships with animals and plants.

Prof. Smajdor, in other words, is very much an ‘expert’ trained by the very same institution, Imperial College, that employs other ‘experts’, such as Prof. Neil Ferguson of, you know, lock-pantsdown fame. Unlike her infamous colleague and his track-record of failure dating back at least to the ‘Swine Flu Pandemic’ of 2009/10, Prof. Smajdor’s expertise relates to ‘medicine, innovation and the life-sciences’. Close enough to warrant a look, don’t you think?

Quotes are from the above-linked article, emphases and bottom lines mine. For the sake of readability, I have removed all references, which can be obtained in the fully open-access original paper (linked above).

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Abstract

Whole body gestational donation offers an alternative means of gestation for prospective parents who wish to have children but cannot, or prefer not to, gestate. It seems plausible that some people would be prepared to consider donating their whole bodies for gestational purposes just as some people donate parts of their bodies for organ donation. We already know that pregnancies can be successfully carried to term in brain-dead women. There is no obvious medical reason why initiating such pregnancies would not be possible. In this paper, I explore the ethics of whole-body gestational donation. I consider a number of potential counter-arguments, including the fact that such donations are not life-saving and that they may reify the female reproductive body. I suggest if we are happy to accept organ donation in general, the issues raised by whole-body gestational donation are differences of degree rather than substantive new concerns. In addition, I identify some intriguing possibilities, including the use of male bodies-perhaps thereby circumventing some potential feminist objections.

This is exactly the kind of slippery slope we’ve all experienced as of late, incl. the conflation of those who cannot and those who ‘prefer not to gestate’. What’s the difference, eh?

Then there’s the amoral and ethically highly questionable notion of ‘da Science™ can do it, why shouldn’t we therefore do it’, which is yet another telling example of the utter depravity of medical professionals we’ve all seen so prominently on display during the so-called ‘pandemic’.

As a bonus woke BS bingo notion, there is also the typical, albeit extra-vulgar postmodern gibberish in the last line concerning ‘some potential feminist objections’.

Let’s take a closer look, shall we? (Feel free to puke in-between, by the way; that’s o.k., and if my experiences are any guide, doing so is also quite appropriate.)

From Smajdor’s Introduction

In 2000, Rosalie Ber advanced a novel suggestion for circumventing the moral problems of gestational surrogacy [that used to be called ‘pregnancy’]. She proposed that female patients in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) who had given prior written consent, could function as surrogates…no jurisdiction has considered implementing Ber’s suggestion. This is surprising, given the degree to which surrogacy continues to provoke moral and legal controversy…

For the purposes of this paper, I use the term ‘whole body gestational donation’ (WBGD)…I have adapted and extended her approach in three important ways that have both practical and normative implications…

• Ber’s view is that women in PVS would offer the best alternative to living surrogacy. I suggest that we should be willing to consider WBGD in patients who are brain stem dead rather than in PVS (and would therefore be eligible to be organ donors).

• Ber believes that WBGD should be available only to the patients deemed to have a clear medical need for it. I suggest that—all other things being equal—it should be an option for anyone who wishes to avoid the risks and burdens of gestating a foetus in their own body.

• Ber implicitly accepts that only women can gestate. I suggest that brain stem dead men would also have the potential to gestate, meaning that the pool of potential donors is further increased—and that certain feminist concerns might thus be assuaged.

In what follows…I suggest that states and health services should adapt their policies and procedures to allow for WBGD among other donation options.

The entire ‘unholy trinity’ of Postmodernism, Transhumanism, and Pseudo-Science™ is on display in these few lines: as the first bullet point shows, Prof. Smajdor argues essentially against not only ‘humanism’ and ‘what it means to be human’, but she embraces anti-evolutionary and thus anti-nature positions. Virtually every living creature of this planet since life began has had to procreate; all female mammals that ever live on the Earth, and that of course includes humans, had the potential to go through pregnancy. Endorsing an ‘alternative to living surrogacy’, Prof. Smajdor boldly breaches the frontiers of ‘Transhumanism’ and goes all-in her anti-nature crusade.

To make matters worse, Smajdor then characterises pregnancy as something that is overwhelmingly characterised by ‘risks and burdens’. Sure, nothing in this life is risk-free, but people are dying from, say, car accidents far more often than from pregnancy: the odds of dying in a car accident in the US is 1 in 93; by contrast, in 2017, there were 720-730 pregnancy-related deaths in the US, out of a population of over 315m people (data from OWID vs. the insurance industry).

The last bullet point is gratuitous virtue-signalling of the worst kind: woke. My best—and most charitable—comment would be that Prof. Smajdor has lost her mind. *Males* cannot get pregnant, as this requires not ‘only’ a whole of reproductive organs specific to the female body—but also the one and only sex/gender-specific part of the human anatomy: the pelvis. Don’t just trust me on this one, though, for here’s a child doing the ‘splainin’ (shout-out to her parents):

Let’s move on, shall we?

What’s in a Word, Prof. Smajdor?

In the following section, Smajdor discusses where and how her approach differs from Rosalie Ber. This is standard for academics: if you propose ‘something’ (new), one needs to state clearly how far one’s proposition differs from what people wrote before you.

First, Smajdor acknowlegdes that ‘pregnancies can be carried to term in women…[who are] brain dead’ or who are ‘in a PSV’. She then uses the proposition that, ’since both PVS and brain death are compatible with gestation’ and ‘PVS is a more unusual phenomenon than brain death’, Smajdor essentially argues that it would be best to use brain stem death ‘for determining when a patient’s life is effectively at an end is widespread in the context of organ donation’, mainly because ‘patients who are brain stem dead cannot recover. Irreversibility is written into the definition of brain death.’ (emphasis in the original).

What Smajdor fails to notice, however, is that this particular when-does-life-end argument can (must), logically, also apply to the issue of abortion: taking these claims at their face-value means, logically, that unborn foetuses who have developed their brain stem must be considered alive humans. As far as we know, neural development in foetuses commences in or around week 6, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Smajdor then moves to declare that ‘those who accept brain stem death as an adequate basis for organ donation, should for consistency acknowledge its acceptability for WBGD as well. For those who reject the brain stem death criteria, clearly both organ donation and WBGD will be problematic’.

It’s About ‘Consent’, Stupid!

The subsequent section is entitled ‘Consent’ and deals with the thorny issue of pre-PSV consent to WBGD. And there’s a problem, if there ever was one:

Given that a patient in PVS cannot give informed consent, this would entail that people give consent for WBGD in PVS in advance of PVS happening to them. I have observed that PVS is a rare phenomenon.

There are ‘studies’ indicating PVS is exceedingly rare; Smajdor cites Van Erp et al. (2015) who suggest a prevalence of 0.1 to 0.2 PVS type patients per 100,000 people or ‘0.01-0.02 per million’. The UK’s National Health Service estimates 18 cases of brain stem death per million of the general population.

Thankfully, Smajdor has a suggestion to deal with this conundrum:

In practical terms, requiring consent from women prior to PVS surrogacy means that a woman must (a) have thought about the prospect of PVS and (b) decided to proactively offer herself as a PVS surrogate, before experiencing the event that causes her PVS. The likelihood of this ever happening is vanishingly small…

My suggestion of using the organ donation framework means that (a) we have more potential candidates and (b) we have existing consent systems whereby people either give consent proactively in advance or are deemed to have done so in the lack of any evidence to the contrary. Thus, wherever organ donation is legal, brain-dead WBGD would be a relatively simple tweak to that framework.

Let’s just have Prof. Smajdor or any other ‘expert’ simply tweak the legislation here and there—voilà, problem solved. /sarcasm

Sadly for this ‘expert’, the issue is a bit more tricky, as Smajdor explains:

Consent requirements for organ donation are extremely loose, in comparison with consents required for other forms of medical intervention. Recent legislative changes in the UK, for example, mean that a person’s organs may be harvested without any clear indication that they wished for this to happen. Should we expect something more demanding than this, if we include WBGD among the uses of a person’s body after their (brain) death? If so, why, given that we accept such minimal requirements for ‘normal’ organ donation? Perhaps one answer here is that WBGD is not something that people understand or have knowledge of. Therefore ‘deemed consent’ such as the organ donation framework relies on, is not properly informed. People who fail to opt out of the organ donation system can be regarded as having passively consented to something they have sufficient knowledge about. Everyone has heard of organ donation. No-one has heard of WBGD. Moreover, WBGD is qualitatively different in that it entails ventilation over an extended period. And, of course, its aim is not ‘life-saving’ per se as organ donation is usually understood to be.

Halfway through this paragraph, the paper should have stopped.

‘deemed consent’ such as the organ donation framework relies on, is not properly informed [consent]

But. The problem is that with the so-called ‘pandemic’ experience, there is ample evidence that ‘informed consent’ and ‘bodily autonomy/sovereignty’ are things that are no longer front and centre of (medical) ethics. Remember the ‘vaccine mandates’? Informed consent is no longer absolute, and I for one would have loved to see the reviews of this paper—did any reviewer actually point this out?

None of these qualms trouble our philosopher here, though, as Smajdor concludes this section in the following way:

The public is poorly informed as to the details of cadaveric organ donation and harvesting; some of those who support organ donation in principle might be disturbed if they understood what is involved, or even choose not to donate. Certainly, the level of information that is deemed sufficient as a basis for harvesting organs is minimal when compared with other significant invasive procedures either before or after death. Consenting to an operation would require a far greater degree of information; making a will would require a far greater degree of specificity and would need to be witnessed in order to be legally binding. If current consent protocols are acceptable for organ donation, they should be acceptable for WBGD, perhaps with additional public information campaigns.

Prof. Smajdor acknowledges that many—most, I’d think—people would object to WBGD. Her ‘solution’ is as evil as it is simple: just don’t tell anyone and proceed anyways by claiming regulations developed in an entirely different context may apply.

Practical Implications of ‘Extended Ventilation’

I shall skip over much of the extensive section on ‘extended ventilation’, which would be required for WBGD, even though there certainly are quite some ‘gems’, such as the following quotes:

Some clinicians regard somatic survival after brain stem death as being unsustainable for prolonged periods. The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) states that ‘…the heart will eventually stop beating, even if a ventilator continues to be used’. But this is not very helpful: any heart will eventually stop beating, ventilated or not. The question is when the heart will stop, and whether this can be controlled or postponed…

It is precisely because somatic function can be vastly prolonged that the NHS makes this statement. It is commonly regarded as bad medical practice, as well as being unethical, to prolong somatic survival in brain-dead patients…

A cadaver will decompose quickly if not chemically preserved or refrigerated. The ventilated organ donor will not decompose unless some additional event or intervention occurs…

Abuhasna Said et al. note that the duration of the longest brain-dead gestation is 110 days. The foetus in this case was delivered at the earliest point at which it was deemed viable, at 32 weeks’ gestation. Ventilation was withdrawn from the mother immediately after delivery, resulting in her ‘death’. Such cases do not tell us how long the patient could have been sustained if ventilation had continued. Sarah Armstrong and Roshan Fernando observe that there is no known upper physiological limit to the ‘prolongation of somatic function in the absence of brainstem function’…

WBGD would involve extending this prolongation considerably further. But ventilating someone for two days, two weeks, or two years makes little difference except insofar as it forces us to acknowledge and recognise what we are doing before we hasten on to the next stage. The justification for prolonging somatic survival in conventional organ donation is primarily the benefits that are expected to derive for others, but also the idea that if someone wants to donate their organs, it may be reasonable to take the steps to preserve the organs even when this is no longer directly in the patient’s medical best interests. The same criteria apply to WBGD; the period of prolongation is further extended, but the means and justification are the same…

And then there is the following paragraph:

There may be practical issues, however, since the longer period of ventilation required for WBGD would give scope for more medical complexities than those involved in conventional organ donation. Not only this, but there may be a question as to the feasibility of initiating pregnancy in brain-dead patients. There are at least two reported cases of PVS patients becoming pregnant, after their PVS diagnosis after being raped…to date, there are to my knowledge no documented reports of the initiation of pregnancy in brain stem dead patients. This could mean that the incidence of rape in brain stem dead patients is zero, in contrast to that in PVS patients. Alternatively, it might suggest that the incidence of rape is similar in both cases, but that rape in brain-dead patients does not result in pregnancy. (It is perhaps misleading to use the term ‘rape’ in the case of brain-dead patients, if we really regard the victim as being dead. Sex with a corpse is necrophilia rather than rape.)

No ethical issues involved, such as this recent case from the US of a male nurse allegedly repeatedly abusing and raping a female coma patient, resulting in a pregnancy that certainly did not involve any kind of consent, to say nothing about ethics. Prof. Smajdor’s piece, though, remains silent, with the exception of the above-cited paragraph.

Instead, read the following justification carefully:

All those who discuss these issues agree that there is a lack of data. If WBGD has anything at all to recommend it, this gives us a prima facie reason at least for seeking additional information. We will not know what variables affect the outcomes without carrying out further research.

Prof. Smajdor calls for ‘research’—really: human experimentation conducted on brain-dead individuals—to figure out what is possible. If this reminds you of, say, the Covid jabs, you’re not far off. Here’s Dr. Eric Rubin who, back in 2021, said the following:

We're never gonna learn how safe the vaccine is until we start giving it.

What could go wrong?

Back to Prof. Smajdor’s piece, then:

Given the current state of medical science, as outlined above, WBGD is not beyond the realms of possibility. Since we are happy to accept that organ donors are dead enough to donate, we should have no objections to WBGD on these grounds. WBGD donors are as dead as other donors—no more, no less. Since we are happy to prolong the somatic survival of already pregnant brain-dead women, to initiate pregnancy among eligible brain-dead donors should not trouble us unduly. But to move towards the actuality of WBGD, some further argument may be required to show why WBGD is ethically desirable, and to demonstrate why, in the face of the most obvious objections, it may nevertheless be a preferable alternative to uterus donation and surrogacy and even to pregnancy itself.

‘The Status of the WBGD Embryo and Foetus’

Undeniably, in our present state of knowledge, much remains to be learnt about prolonged somatic survival, initiation of pregnancy, gestation, and delivery in brain-dead patients. Even those who might think there is some appeal in WBGD might baulk at the idea of how we could move ahead in the experimental phase that would be required before we could be sure that WBGD is safe and effective for routine use. [no need for ethical considerations, eh? ‘safe and effective’ is all that matters] This hiatus is not unusual. It exists between every prospective innovation, and our current practices. But in the case of WBGD, we face the problem of what it might mean to embark on experimental procedures that affect real embryos, foetuses and, ultimately, babies.

In jurisdictions that already permit embryo research, it is clear that some experiments on implantation and development up to 14 days might be permissible. Within the existing infrastructure of these jurisdictions, there seems little reason why preliminary experimentation should not go ahead. However, moving from experimental procedures designed to end in the destruction of the embryo at 14 days, to experiments that affect later stage foetuses, or which might be designed to result in the birth of live offspring, may be contentious. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that in recent years, the 14-day rule has started to come under some pressure both from scientists and ethicists who believe there should be a longer period during which research is permissible.

If you wish to learn ‘more’ about these scientists and ethicists, feel free to continue reading this paper entitled, ‘The time has come to extend the 14-day limit’, written by one Sophie McCully. And now—back to Prof. Smajdor:

Foetuses have greater protection than embryos in some jurisdictions. Harm, or even uncertainty relating to the foetus in utero as a research subject might therefore pose a problem. However, in places where embryo research is permitted, the law often allows for abortion. Legal grounds for abortion generally include impairments or diseases affecting the foetus. Thus, with very close surveillance, it is reasonable to think that–if foetuses are severely damaged by unexpected factors arising from brain-dead gestation–this need not result in the birth of severely damaged babies. Rather, it could result in the termination of the process at the discretion of the commissioning parents. Abortion, especially late term abortion, can be traumatic for gestating women both emotionally and physically. However, in the case of WBGD, the gestating woman is already dead and cannot be harmed. Commissioning parents may decide on abortion or selective reduction in accordance with their own wishes, without having to worry about the effects on the gestating donor.

This is an important consideration: abortion is one of the issues that make surrogacy ethically troublesome. Getting pregnant on behalf of a commissioning parent is one thing but being required to undergo an abortion seems to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in medicine, yet it is a fairly standard part of surrogacy contracts. In addition, surrogacy contracts often include clauses that require the surrogate to undergo or forego certain medical interventions. This may be construed as relinquishing a right that, properly speaking, is inalienable. In the case of WBGD, we face no such difficulties. As the gestational donor is in some ways much more explicitly the proxy of the commissioning parents, than a surrogate, it is not necessarily a stretch to regard selective reduction or the removal of a damaged foetus, as undergoing abortion by proxy.

And this wonderful sample of academic prose brings us to the issue of surrogacy and its (il)legality: according to, e.g., Babygest.com, it is explained that

In most parts of Europe, surrogacy is an illegal procedure. While the law explicitly forbids it in some countries, others do not mention surrogacy as an option to become parents at all. Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Estonia, and Moldavia are some examples.

Europe is not the only continent where the vast majority of countries ban surrogacy arrangements. In Asia, for example, it is not permitted in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, China, and Japan. And the same applies to some US states in spite of the country's popularity as a lax destination for surrogacy overseas. New York, Arizona, Michigan, Indiana, and North Dakota are some examples.

In fact, for some US states, including New York, surrogacy is punishable by law, and those who enter into a surrogacy arrangement—both surrogates/gestational carriers, and commissioning parents—are subject to a fine or imprisonment, as well as any other party that intermediates in a surrogacy arrangement to some extent.

Finally, Mexico has been included in this group despite two Mexican states allow surrogacy for residentes: Tabasco and Sinaloa. Until recently, foreign citizens were allowed to have a surrogate baby in Mexico. However, this is not allowed anymore after the law was amended in 2015, establishing that access was not allowed to non-residents or to those who don't meet certain criteria.

Dear Prof. Smajdor: would you have us change our laws that forbid these practices or are we talking about what should be properly called a form of human trafficking if desperate parents are seeking out vulnerable women in those jurisdictions that permit these practices? Also, note that it’s not ‘just me’ who calls surrogacy harmful and human trafficking—the UN’s OHCR does so, too.

Moreover, what would it mean to be ‘human’ if we amend our laws, rules, and regulations with respect to these issues?

WBGD offers a more familiar way forward than, for example, IVF when it was first undertaken in humans, and mitochondrial donation. It also offers a better-known path than uterine transplantation, whether living or cadaveric. We already know that human foetuses can survive gestation in brain-dead patients…

WBGD offers a further benefit over standard pregnancies: the WBGD donor is under absolute medical control and surveillance. The move towards greater surveillance of pregnancy in living women has been strongly criticised by many feminists for its oppressive and intrusive incursions into the everyday lives that women must still live while pregnant. The WBG donor has no everyday life: her function is solely to gestate. We dare not transfer too many embryos into living women, because selective reduction is traumatic and harmful to the pregnant woman. There are no such problems in relation to the WBG donor. If she needs more or less of any particular drug or if foetal interventions are required, we have none of the potential conflict that can affect ordinary pregnancies. Parents may transfer as many embryos as they can generate, maximising the chances of at least one viable birth, and if necessary, discarding any damaged or diseased ones in advance. Again, pointing out these possibilities may sound ugly, but they are processes that are routine in fertility medicine across the globe.

They are also indicative of the incredible moral and ethical decay of ‘experts’, in particular in the fields of medicine. There is no need to invoke the so-called ‘pandemic’ to prove this; Prof. Smajdor’s words are indicative.

Who Needs—or Wants—WBGD?

WBGD is not a life-saving intervention. Perhaps on this basis, we should focus on interventions where the clinical need is demonstrably greater…the insistence that organ donation should be ‘life saving’ seems outdated. With increasing expertise in transplant surgery, the options for non-life-saving interventions—face, larynx, hand, uterus, and so on—are multiplying. If we accept this, we have no grounds to object to WBGD on the basis that it is not a life-saving intervention. Indeed, WBGD in some senses can be more accurately described as ‘helping someone to live’ than many other forms of donation, since it effectively allows for the creation of a new life. [welcome, created—designed—child no. 124]

Unlike any other form of organ donation, WBGD imposes no risks on the ‘recipient’. It has the additional advantage of conveying significant clinical benefits on women who make use of it. If WBGD were offered as an alternative to pregnancy generally, the clinical benefits would be striking. It is here that I diverge most significantly from Ber. Ber argues that only the neediest of claimants should have access to WBGD—those who have clear medical contra-indications to pregnancy or lack a uterus altogether. The problem with this is that pregnancy itself should properly speaking be medically contra-indicated for women generally.

It is well known that pregnancy and childbirth carry significant health risks, even in affluent settings with sophisticated healthcare systems. To expose oneself to risks comparable to pregnancy and childbirth would be deemed foolish and pathological in any other context. I have previously shown that in a comparison between pregnancy and measles, pregnancy comes out considerably the worse in terms of morbidity and mortality [I’ve elected to keep this reference, for those of you who are so inclined to follow Prof. Smajdor down that particularly egregious rabbit-hole: ‘In defense of ectogenesis’ (2012)]. Yet concerted medical efforts are focussed on ridding ourselves of measles, while women are expected to submit themselves to the greater risks of pregnancy and childbirth almost without thinking about it. Measles is a notifiable disease whose eradication is an avowed goal of medicine. It follows that pregnancy should–all other things being equal–also be regarded in this light, since it is riskier than measles. We cannot yet forego the uterus altogether for the reproduction of our species. But we can transfer the risks of gestation to those who are no longer able to be harmed by them.

Bonus Ft. (skip if you’ve had enough): Woke-ism Galore

Almost adding (logic) insult to (brain) injury when reading this ‘study’, the most ridiculous sections, though, are the ones in which Prof. Smajdor addresses the thoroughly woke-ified ‘feminist concerns and male pregnancy’ (note that I have refused from highlighting but the most absurd passages):

There are aspects of WBGD that might stand out as being unacceptable from a feminist perspective. WBGD clearly dissociates the functions of reproduction from the person. The reproductive capacity is in some senses commodified; it is valued for what it can produce rather than its intrinsic association with the person whose capacity it is. Women are often objectified for their sexual or reproductive functions, even while they are very clearly alive. The idea that a pregnant woman is, or should be treated as, a foetal container, frequently reasserts itself. WBGD is quite straightforwardly the use of the body as a foetal container. Could it be that in allowing such use, we would somehow condone the idea that living women who are gestating are also to be treated as mere foetal containers?

One might argue that WBGD involving brain-dead women has no implications for living women, any more than harvesting the heart from a brain-dead man has an impact on living men. However, perhaps this is disingenuous. WBGD necessarily involves the separation of women’s reproductive functions from their very consciousness. Even if no-one would suggest that this should alter the way we regard ordinary women and their pregnancies, it might send an implicit message, or reinforcement to deeply entrenched assumptions and prejudices. The prospect of the unconscious woman’s body, filled and used by others as a vessel, is a vivid illustration of just what feminists have fought against for many years.

These feminist concerns, however, might be mitigated if men could also participate in WBGD. The prospect of male pregnancy is not, as many would imagine, fanciful, or a piece of science fiction. In 1999, Robert Winston told reporters that there were no intrinsic medical problems with initiating a male pregnancy: the danger would be in the delivery [see the above-linked video]. We already know that pregnancies can come to term outside the uterus. The liver is a promising implantation site, because of its excellent blood supply. However, as Winston noted, this could be risky—even fatal—for the person carrying the pregnancy [more than, say, measles?]. But for brain-dead donors, the concept ‘fatal’ is meaningless: the gestator is already dead. Thus, even if the liver is damaged beyond repair after the gestation, this would not pose a problem except insofar as it might mean that male gestators could carry only one pregnancy, rather than many consecutive ones [talk about single-use commodities, eh?].

The prospect of the male gestator could thus appease some feminists who might otherwise feel that brain-dead gestation is a step too far in the objectification of women’s reproductive functions.

I’m so glad we’ve got this one sorted out.

Prof. Smajdor’s Conclusions. Finally.

Rosalie Ber’s idea of using women in PVS as substitutes for surrogates has received surprisingly little attention since she first published her paper [gee, I wonder as to why that might be…]. My adaptation of her suggestion would enable more people to donate, and more people to benefit. It requires no redefinition of concepts such as brain death or PVS. For these reasons, WBGD deserves serious consideration. Of course, this proposal may seem shocking to some people. Nevertheless, as I have shown, if we accept that our current approach to organ donation and reproductive medicine are sound [a rather big ‘if’], WBGD donation seems to follow relatively smoothly from procedures that we are already undertaking separately. What I put forward here can be viewed as a thought experiment on one hand. But if we regard WBGD as being clearly outrageous, this suggests we have some uncomfortable questions to answer about the future of cadaveric organ donation. [isn’t necrophilia a felony?]

On the other hand, if WBGD is viewed as a straightforward means of facilitating safer reproduction, and avoiding the moral problems of surrogacy, we should be ready to embrace it as a logical and beneficial extension of activities that we already treat as being morally unproblematic.

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Bottom Lines

I’m so glad I made it through this one. It’s mind-boggling, to say the least. While Prof. Smajdor acknowledges the ‘experimental’ character of her ‘research’ into this area, I doubt it will bring her fame. Rather, ‘experts’ like her should be called out for being outrageous, but then again, this might well be the point.,

Papers and propositions such as this one are the next step on the road to perdition trans-humanism. I’m quite certain Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, and their ilk are excited about the prospects of zombie gestational ‘machines’, which should also garner support from postmodernist ‘thinkers’ and ‘theoreticists’ who have long mused about the machine-like qualities of postmodern humanity.

Also, note note the vacuous postmodern/woke MO: the use of ‘fancy’ terms, like ‘gestational surrogacy’ instead of pregnancy', ‘persistent vegetative state’, or ‘whole body gestational donation’, incl. the now-common alphabet soup (acronyms) and the insistence on its use. It’s literally the same thing with ‘preferred pronouns’.

Also, feel free to be as loony as you want, but leave me the heck alone.

Also, who is Rosalie Ber? Here’s a her 2000 paper, entitled ‘Ethical issues in gestational surrogacy’ that served as inspiration for the above ‘study’ by Smajdor. Beyond that, it appears she’s working at Technion Israel Institute of Technology, but I’ve not done too much digging (yet).

More soon.