Bemis Public Library
6014 S Datura St
Littleton, CO 80120
United States
Join us for the Big Ideas Lecture Series: "Machine Mother,” by Juliet Beckman, ACC English faculty, on September 3 from 6-7pm at Bemis Public Library.
The Big Ideas Lecture Series brings ACC faculty into the community to share fresh insights around questions connected to the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Hosted by the Bemis Library, each talk is free, public, and designed to spark thought and conversation.
Ectogestation, or the artificial womb, is fast moving toward completion with Australia's Eve project and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's "biobag". Fetal lambs are already being successfully transferred to biobags. While a biobag will likely save the lives of thousands of premature babies, the legal and ethical ramifications of machine mothers are manifold. What do the humanities have to say about removing gestation from the human female? Research into epigenetics, microchimerism and phenotypes lags behind the mechanical success of the biobag. Literature such as Frankenstein and Brave New World seem prescient in warning that these complex processes are too mysterious to farm out. Films such as I Am Mother underscore the eugenic inherency to these technologies.
For more information or accommodations, contact Patrice Session at patrice [dot] session [at] arapahoe [dot] edu.