How artificial wombs could provide an acceptable replacement for abortion -- depending on who controls them

 The title of this post more or less summarizes the starting point for my latest near-future novel, Donation.

I almost published this book a couple of years ago. I decided against it because it focuses on the misuse of artificial womb technology, and I didn't want to give the impression that I opposed the development of such technology (or of new technologies in general). I did some rewriting to make clearer, I hope, that I was warning about why we should hesitate to give control of large numbers of unborn children to government, especially to centralized government.

Until the leak of a draft of the Dobbs opinion, I didn't really think we'd see the demise of Roe v. Wade any time soon. Yet here we are. So the book has ended up being pretty timely. And I want to say again -- to emphasize -- that if we don't fall into the trap this book describes, prenatal incubators that can shelter and nourish fetuses and even embryos could be a way for women in "red" states to retain, or regain, their reproductive freedom. 

No solution is perfect, including this one. Some women would be haunted by the thought that a child of theirs was out there somewhere, and worry about that child's well-being (unless some sort of followup was allowed). But some women find themselves regretting an abortion. If I were still in my reproductive years and unable to raise the child I was carrying, I would much rather chose the incubator, if I could.