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Scientists Want to Grow Spare Human Bodies. · The Slippery Slope

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  OK, in January 2023 released a an episode.
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  The episode was titled At Growing Babies, the World's
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  First Artificial Womb, and it's it's about a company, Ectolife.
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  I'm going to read for you the description that I wrote up.
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  It says just because you know how to do something does not
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  mean it is the wise thing to do. Ectolife, the world's first
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  artificial womb facility, is offering a safer way for babies
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  to be born by growing the baby in an artificial womb.
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  If you have the money, you can also participate in the Elite
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  programme. What's the elite programme you
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  ask? Well, design your baby to stand
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  there from the rest. Pick the eye colour, skin tone,
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  height, strength, intelligence. Also, your child stands out from
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  the crowd. What could possibly go wrong?
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  You know The thing is now I rewatched the episode just to
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  because I'm like, what am I doing here?
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  Just trying to work out this episode.
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  So I thought I'm going to go back and go over this episode.
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  At the time, I think I look at what Ecto Life was doing, a
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  couple of things that stood out. I made some comments on how the
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  little promo video reminded me of the Matrix.
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  You know, in the Matrix you have all those chambers and you have
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  the all the people with the tubes in them.
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  They're all living in that that liquid sub, you know, substance
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  and it's feeding them whatever. And it's very weird.
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  And the machines, I think, are living off the off the humans.
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  Yuck. Anyway, so I'm looking at the
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  video, the promo video that Ector life had put out and I
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  thought I kept making comments about how it reminded me of the
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  matrix. But at the time my, I look back
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  and think, well, I, I thought, I did not think I was this naive.
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  But obviously, I mean, you know, you think something is going to
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  this can take you on the slippery slope.
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  If you get in this path, well, then you're going to accept it
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  and you're going to go down a different path and just keep
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  allowing the moral morality to keep slipping.
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  Ethics keep sliding, sliding and sliding.
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  And until I read, until I read this article, until I saw a
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  report and read this article, I'm going to go through at least
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  one Read this article the other day.
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  This actually came out in March. I don't think, I don't think I
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  had maybe I didn't think humans would think in this way.
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  I thought, OK, this is going to take us down.
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  If they if they keep going down this path, this is going to be
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  weird. OK.
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  I thought everyone was just talking about growing babies for
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  families because that's the way it was advertised.
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  Let's just grow babies for families that, you know, they've
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  got their uterus. The woman who's got no uterus
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  for one reason or another, You know, we can grow the baby for
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  you in this artificial womb. Sounds lovely.
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  Yeah. But no, someone else, couple of
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  other scientists, they've decided.
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  Well, we've got a couple. We've got some other things we
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  could we that we could use this for, don't we?
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  Couple other things? How about, how about we just
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  start growing some humans? Maybe we won't grow their
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  brains, but we'll just grow them and we can harvest the bodies.
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  Harvest the bodies for spare organs.
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  This is from MIT Technology Review.
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  Now I'm going to encourage you. OK, I'm going to put the link
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  up. I'll put a thumbnail up for the
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  so you can see find the previous video I did in 2023.
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  I'll put a link up for it for the I'll put a link up for the
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  YouTube video. And if you want to watch it or
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  listen to it on on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you can look,
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  look for that title, the title growing babies, the world's
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  first artificial womb. But let's check this out.
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  Spare living human bodies might provide us with organs for
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  transplantation. Yeah.
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  OK, go through this quick this week.
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  This is, like I said, written in in March.
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  So this week, MITMIT Technology Review published a piece on
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  Bodyoids, living bodies that cannot think or feel pain.
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  In the piece, a trio of experts. And she'll love it when the
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  experts get in there and tell us.
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  Of course, these experts never seem to have any moral qualms.
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  The The ethics are right at the door, but the experts apparently
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  so. A trio of experts argue that
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  advances in biotechnology will soon allow us to create spare
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  human bodies that could be used for research or to provide
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  organs for donation. Nice little way to look at.
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  Yeah, if you find just skin crawling at this point, you're
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  not the only one. It's a creepy idea straight from
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  the more horrible corners of science fiction.
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  But bodyoids could be used for good.
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  You know, you have the moral quandary.
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  You have the ethics dilemma. But you know, they they always
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  put, well, it could be used for good.
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  There's a little bit of good there to be had, apparently.
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  And if they are truly unaware, as in the bodies unaware and
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  unable to think, the use of bodyoids wouldn't cross most in
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  in in quotation marks, most people's ethical lines, the
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  authors argue. Yeah, I reckon.
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  Either way, there's no doubt that developments in science and
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  biotechnology are bringing us close to the potential reality
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  of bodyoids. One of the main arguments made
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  for bodyoids is that they could provide spare human organs.
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  There's a huge shortage of organs for transplantation,
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  except if you're a billionaire. Maybe more than 100,000 people
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  in the US are waiting for a transplant, and 17 people on
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  that waiting list die every day. Human bodyoids could serve as a
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  new source. Scientists are working on other
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  potential solutions to this problem.
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  One approach is the use of gene edited animal organs.
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  Animal organs don't typically last inside human bodies.
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  Our immune system will reject them as foreign.
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  But a few companies are creating pigs with a series of gene
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  edits. I think I spoke about this too
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  in a different episode about the CRISPR and how the editing, you
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  know, creating little hybrids of humans and animals and that they
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  tell us that, you know, these, these embryos are destroyed
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  within before 20 weeks. But but lo and behold, some of
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  these, some of these labs where they're testing are actually
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  done in China. No one really knows.
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  No one really knows what's going on, but just trust them.
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  The embryos of these freak shows are definitely destroyed.
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  So a handful of living people have received gene edited pig
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  organs. OK Tawana Looney.
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  Great. The third living person to
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  receive a gene editor pig kidney has been doing well.
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  She had her transplant surgery in late November of last year.
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  OK, so at least one company is taking more of a bodyoid like
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  approach. Renewal Bio, a biotech company
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  based in Israel, hopes to grow embryo stage versions of people.
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  Yes, of course. It's just an embryo stage for
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  replacement organs. Their approach is based on
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  advances in the development of synthetic embryos.
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  Embryos start with the union of an egg cell and a sperm cell,
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  but scientists have been working on ways to make embryos using
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  stem cells stem cells instead. Under the right conditions,
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  these cells can divide in structures that look like a
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  typical embryo. Scientists don't know how far
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  these embryo like structures will be able to develop.
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  I love the way they put it, embryo like structures.
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  We don't want you to think of them as, you know, kind of a
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  human or anything. And no one really knows how to
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  think about synthetic human embry embryos.
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  Scientists don't even really know what to call them.
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  Rules stipulate that typical human embryos may be grown in
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  the lab for a maximum of 14 days.
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  That's the rules. Of course, if you're in a lab in
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  China and no one's really monitoring, the rules go at the
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  door. Some might say.
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  Should the same rules apply to synthetic ones?
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  OK, so here is the actual the actual MIT Technology Review
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  article. Ethically sourced, spare human
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  bodies could revolutionise medicine.
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  It's going to revolutionise medicine.
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  Don't worry about the ethics. Don't worry about the morals,
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  don't worry about the don't worry about anything.
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  Just trust us, We're the experts.
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  Why do we hear about medical breakthroughs and mice but
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  rarely see them? It may be disper, disturbing to
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  characterise human bodies in such commodifying terms, but the
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  unavoidable reality is that human biological materials are
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  an essential commodity in medicine, and persistent
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  shortages of these materials create a major bottleneck to
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  progress. The imbalance between supply and
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  demand is the underlying cause of the organ shortage crisis.
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  There might be a way to get out of this moral and scientific
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  deadlock. Recent advances in biotechnology
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  now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies
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  without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware
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  or feel pain. They will grow the body on what?
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  Without the brain? Without this they won't.
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  They will grow a body, but it won't be a sanctient being.
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  Is that what they're saying? Many will find this possibility
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  disturbing, really. But if researchers and policy
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  makers can find a way to pull these technologies together, we
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  may one day be able to create spare bodies, both humans and
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  non human. These could revolutionise
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  medical research and drug development, greatly reducing
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  the need for animal testing, protect the animals, rescuing
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  many people from organ transplant lists and allowing us
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  to produce more effective drugs and treatments, all without
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  crossing most people's ethical lines.
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  So they talk about what the bodyoids growing these human
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  forms, but you know they won't be able to feel pain.
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  They won't, they won't really know anything.
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  Imagine something like a a human body but without a without a
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  head. Or maybe it's just got a head
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  but doesn't have a brain in it. Something like that.
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  Also, you can harvest the organs.
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  Like I said, when I did the episode in 2023, it was actually
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  I think I recorded in 2022 December, release it in 2023
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  January. I didn't think that this is kind
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  of, this is the kind of Rd that scientists would be going down
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  in a mere 2 years. And in in fact, what I think is
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  that force for starters, the, the, the company that was
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  growing these babies for people. I think there's probably a good
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  chance that they have actually done it already and growing
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  these babies in the, in the tubes and, and released them
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  into the wall. Let's put it that way.
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  And there's probably a good chance if it if they're
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  releasing, if they're releasing this information and talking
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  about it now openly and just saying, well, what if we could?
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  There's a good there's a flipping good chance that
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  they've already done it. They are doing it.
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  They're just putting it out there now.
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  They're already testing, they're already doing doing these
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  things. Like I said, when it comes to
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  like the, you know, the, the restrictions they put on the
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  embryos they grow, which are a mixture of animals and humans,
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  they put all these rules in place.
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  But then they say, well, you know, all these rules are in
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  place. And, you know, if you're in
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  Australia or if you're in America, you have to abide by
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  those rules. Oh, but if you have a company
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  and you, you know, your lab is just based in China, what do you
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  know? What do you know?
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  You don't have to obey those rules or you still have to obey
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  these rules, but no one's actually going to be monitoring
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  if you do actually destroy the embryo.
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  Crime Mira, I believe is what is called these crime Mira embryos.
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  This is disgusting, absolutely disgusting.
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  I can't believe these people it I cannot believe these so called
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  scientists are discussing it openly and and putting it out
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  there as if this is something that we should all be
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  considering. Just creating these bodyoids for
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  spare parts. Little little atoms got a
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  little, you know, a little liver disease.
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  But it's all right. We've got a second Adam sitting
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  over here in the freezer. We can just harvest his liver.
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  It's all good. Let me know what you think.
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  Absolutely disturbing and disgusting.
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  Somehow I am not surprised. I'm not surprised, but I'm just
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  disgusted. I've got to know what you think
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  this is. This is just feral.
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  Like I said, I'll put up the video for the other things that
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  I was talking about, that Ector life that was growing, looking
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  at growing babies, you know, just doing what what's good,
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  just helping out families who can't can't grow a child in the
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  womb, just that's all. But apparently that's not
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  enough, not now. They just want to grow spare
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  parts. Let me know what you think.
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  You reckon they've already done it?
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  I reckon they're already doing it All this is well, I'm reading
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  this and part of this is my opinion.
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  This is freaky stuff. I'm Jay Fallon.
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  Thanks for listening to the slippery Slope.
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  They. Just