Repronews #44: This is Evopolitics

Implications of artificial wombs; ASRM podcasts; techno-natalism in Israel; decline of US family draws attention; Japanese births keep falling; Philip Ball's "How Life Works"

Welcome to the latest issue of Repronews! First, an important announcement regarding the future of this newsletter. The Genetic Choice Project is being folded into my (Craig Willy’s) personal website under the section cwilly.substack.com/s/repronews.

Unfortunately, Substack does not enable importing of emails to a specific section. Therefore all GCP subscribers are automatically signed up for all posts at Craig Willy’s Evopolitics. If you only want to receive the Repronews newsletter, you can opt out of my other posts by adjusting your Substack settings as explained here.

GCP has been running for almost a year now and during that time has grown to have almost 1400 subscribers and followers, including high-level geneticists, reprotechnologists, (bio)ethicists, natalists, pundits, and more. While I have been very happy to see this growth in interest, it’s no secret that GCP has been largely a one-man show run by yours truly and I have been thinking hard about how to both make the project sustainable and maximize its impact.

Repronews will continue as an (almost) weekly newsletter aggregating and summarizing the latest developments in reprotech, population policies, genetic studies, and general evolutionary trends.

While I believe this basic intel on the human evolutionary trajectory—an issue of fundamental importance to the human future!—deserves to be shared for free as a public service, the fact is this service does not pay for itself.

As such, I will begin paywalling one-out-of-two Repronews posts and am proposing a €52/year subscription (or €5/month) for full access. One euro a week (about $1.1) seems a reasonable price for anyone benefiting from this aggregation/summarization service (which, I assure you, is not being done by AI!).

The Repronews newsletter is now part of my broader promotion of the concept of Evopolitics, or evolutionary politics, which tries to understand the deep and broad interrelations between politics and Darwinian evolution. Indeed, the basic Darwinian principles of inheritance, modification/experimentation, and selection/competition are of relevance not only to biology in the narrow sense, but also to politics, culture economics, and the life of the mind. Without getting too technical, I would argue more broadly that all politics and government can be understood under the heading of gene-culture coevolution. I’ll say more on that in future posts and, if time permits, some podcasts.

Highlights from this week’s edition:

• Repro/genetics

  • Philippa Kemp’s prize-winning essay on the prospects, benefits, and challenges of artificial wombs

  • The American Society of Reproductive Medicine’s (ASRM) podcast series on equity, access, and innovation in reproductive medicine

• Population Policies & Trends

  • Craig Willy on techno-natalism in Israel: how the Jewish state has embraced IVF and genetic screening for a larger and healthier population

  • The decline of the American family has become an important subject in U.S. political and media discourse

  • “Super-aged” Japan’s births fell even further in 2023, reaching the lowest levels since 1969

• Further Learning

  • Book review: Philip Ball’s How Life Works provides an almost degree-level of knowledge about the current state of the life sciences

Repro/genetics

“The impact of artificial wombs: A look at the potential benefits and challenges” (PET)

• Philippa Kemp’s essay on artificial wombs won the first prize in the inaugural Marcus Pembrey BioNews Writing Competition.

• Kemp explains how birth—being born from another person’s body—is a universal experience but that artificial wombs may change this.

• There have been significant research breakthroughs in the development of artificial wombs for animals. In 2017, premature lamb were successfully gestated for up to four weeks in artificial wombs. These lambs survived and went on to gain weight, grow wool coats, and open their eyes.

• Artificial wombs have been tested on hundreds of lambs, pigs, and mice. This animal research has laid the groundwork for the next stage: human trials.

• The first human trials for artificial wombs will likely be for premature babies.

• Babies born as early as 25 weeks have good chances for survival if they receive intensive medical care, but many will develop severe health conditions. These conditions could be minimized by transferring the babies to artificial wombs.

• Artificial wombs designed specifically for premature babies are on the cusp of human trials. The U.S. FDA is already considering this new technology. If an exemption is granted, human trials may start as early as this year.

• An artificial womb could enable a woman to intentionally end her pregnancy at any stage by removing the fetus and transferring it to the artificial womb. This could be useful if the mother is unable to safely carry the pregnancy to term.

• Artificial wombs could also be developed to allow a human to be entirely grown within the technology. People could then have children without pregnancy at all. This could provide an alternative to the current options of adoption and surrogacy for those who cannot or do not want to become pregnant.

• Societal expectations for women may change if they are no longer seen as the exclusive child-bearers, potentially leading to increased gender equality.

• Artificial wombs would provide more flexibility on the age someone chooses to have a child.

• The social use of artificial wombs has been portrayed in films such as The Pod Generation, which follows a couple having a baby via a portable artificial womb, and I Am Mother, which presented artificial wombs as a way of creating new humans if humanity becomes extinct.

• The use of artificial wombs also presents several challenges. It is unclear what legal status should be assigned to humans that reside within artificial wombs. In the UK, an unborn fetus has no legal status. Legal parenthood is assigned based on birth as the birth mother automatically becomes the legal parent.

• Artificial womb technology could help alleviate politically charged issues about reproduction such as declining birthrates and overseas surrogacy arrangements,, as it would allow humans to be created without the reproductive labor of women's bodies.

• The technology could also be used in commercial applications such as growing livestock for farmers.

• Artificial wombs also raise ethical questions. There are fears that babies will be negatively affected if they are grown “without a mother’s touch.”

• Kemp concludes: “The availability of artificial wombs for humans is imminent, and this technology will fundamentally impact society over the next few decades in many ways—from changing the landscape of reproduction, to altering social attitudes about gender roles.”

ASRM Today Podcast series: “Equity, Access, and Innovation” (ASRM)

• The American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) has launched the second season of its podcast series dedicated to driving positive change in reproductive medicine.

• Episode 1 focus on equity and the question of how to make reproductive medicine more equitable and accessible for all. Dr. Paula Amato and Dr. Jennifer Kawwass present their perspectives and explore the barriers that currently exist.

• Episode 2 focuses on access with personal stories and expert insights on overcoming barriers to fertility care.

• Episode 3 focuses on innovation, how reproductive medicine is continuing to evolve and make breakthroughs as a relatively young branch of medicine.

• The episodes are short (8-12 minutes) and highly informative.

More on repro/genetics:

• “The removal of donor anonymity in the UK: What might this mean for donor-conceived people?” (PET)

• “Fertility trends: outcomes improve by NHS cycles down” (PET)

Population Policies & Trends

Craig Willy, “Techno-natalism in Israel” (Aporia)

• Israel is perhaps the country in the world most supportive of reprogenetic technologies. These are being used to expand reproductive choice and foster a bigger and healthier population.

• Israel has a strongly pronatalist culture, encouraged by the need for the Jewish people to recover from the holocaust and create a secure Jewish state in the Middle East, as well as by Jewish religious values (“go forth and multiply…”).

• Israel’s public health insurance covers IVF services for all infertile women, whether married or single, for up to two children. Abortion is legal.

• Over 5% of births in Israel are IVF-assisted, the highest in the world.

• The Israeli government recommends and funds genetic screening for individuals for diseases associated with their ethno-genetic background. Genetic disease risk is heightened given that different Jewish (and non-Jewish) populations in Israel have a long history of endogamy/inbreeding.

• Israel actively supports the retrieval, preservation, and use of fallen soldiers’ sperm.

• Screening embryos for polygenic diseases (such as diabetes and many cancers) is currently illegal in Israel but is being debated.

• Israelis are markedly more in favor of using reprogenetic technologies to improve genetic health than other groups, such as Croatians, Israeli Arbs, or, especially, Germans.

• Given a supportive cultural, political, religious, and biotechnological context, Israel can be expected to continue to pioneer the use and mass adoption of reprogenetic technologies in the twenty-first century.

“Our demographic disaster is here” (American Mind)

• Low fertility and natalism are increasingly taking center stage in U.S. political and media debates.

• Many media are now discussing the nation’s birth rate crisis, including CBS, CNN, the Washington Post, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox News.

• There is an emerging political consensus that the American family is in crisis.

• The Biden-Harris Administration says “low fertility” will translate to fewer workers per capita, creating “significant headwinds to economic growth, the fiscal sustainability of public benefit programs, and the trend of continuous improvements in living standards.”

• Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance has bemoaned the nation’s declining birth rate and criticized unhappy “childless cat ladies.”

• Democratic presidential canndidate Kamala Harris’s proposal for an expanded child tax credit of up to $6,000 for families with newborns was made in response to Vance’s earlier call for a $5,000 child tax credit.

• Harris’ idea to help first-time home buyers by encouraging the construction of three million homes seems aimed at young, lower-income families currently priced out by a national housing shortage.

• The author argues conservatives must grapple with the fact that the anti-natalist cultural phenomenon is not unique to the Left or the unchurched.

• Conservatives have more children than liberals, but not by much: as of 2018, conservative women on average have 2.5 children, while liberal women on average have 1.9. No doubt the figures for both sides have fallen since then.

• Some countries (e.g., Hungary, Czechia, and especially Israel) have had modest success at increasing (or at least stabilizing) their birth rates.

• Tim Carney’s recent book, Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be, offers many practical suggestions for policymakers and businesses, from family-friendly urban planning to tax code reform to more generous paid parental leave policies.

• American Millennials are having fewer children than their parents, and Gen Zers are projected to have even fewer than Millennials.

• The author, a practicing Catholic and father of seven (soon-to-be eight), argues contraception and the feminization of the workforce has caused fertility decline, not financial hardship.

Japan releases more alarming data in population update (Newsweek)

• The birth rate in Japan continued to decline in the first half of this year, deepening a trend Tokyo says will be irreversible by the next decade.

• National and local governments have introduced measures like increased childcare spending and immigration reforms to counter the crisis.

• Japan recorded 350,074 births between January and June, an almost 6% drop compared to last year, according to health ministry data. This figure is the lowest since 1969, when Tokyo began reporting the biannual statistic. It also marks the third-consecutive year with fewer than 400,000 births in the first six months, and a sharper decline than the 3.6% drop in the year-earlier period.

• 811,819 deaths were reported in the super-aged society, a rise of nearly 2% from the January-June period in 2023—another 55-year record.

• Japanese Health Minister Keizo Takemi called the situation “extremely critical.” He warned that the number of young people will sharply decrease in the 2030s, calling the next six years Japan’s “last chance.”

• “We are constantly thinking about how to implement effective measures to address the declining birth rate without waiting for this period,” Takemi added.

• These statistics were released as Japan’s parliament approved a revision to legislation aimed at boosting support for current parents by expanding financial aid, parental leave, and childcare access. Funding will come from the $34 billion earmarked for childcare and family support in the fiscal year 2024 budget. The government plans to allocate $23 billion in taxes toward this over three years.

• Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has made raising the birth rate a national priority, previously pledging to double national childcare spending within a decade.

• “Simple economic support, such as increasing benefits, will not easily solve the serious problem of the declining birth rate,” economist Takahide Kiuchi wrote in a June report for Japan’s Nomura Research Institute.

• The economist noted that Japan’s conservative mindset surrounding child-rearing, particularly the heavy burden placed on women, needs to change. More than 80% of women take parental leave, compared to just 14% of men (most of whom take less than two weeks).

• The fertility rate in Japan, or average number of children expected per woman during her lifetime, dipped to a record low of 1.2 last year.

• People aged 65 and over now account for 30% of the population, making Japan a so-called “super-aged society.”

More on population policies and trends:

• “How dating apps contribute to the demographic crisis” (Kyla Scanlon)

• “Gordon Brown’s baby boom” (Boom)

• “Fertility and income: Some notes” (Lyman Stone)

Genetic Studies

• “Gene variant identified that can cause early menopause” (PET)

• “Know-like DNA structures in human genome mapped” (PET)

Further Learning

Book review: Philip Ball’s How Life Works: A User’s Guide to the New Biology (PET)

• Dr. Philip Ball, an award-winning and prolific science writer, has published a book seeking to tie together the state of play of modern biosciences.

• Dr. Ball explains the workings of DNA in enabling our cells to produce proteins and our overall body, as well as the complex role of RNA and non-coding regions of DNA (only 2% of the human genome codes for proteins, with at least 20% coding for regulatory RNAs).

• Many disease-associated DNA mutations are found in these regions associated with regulatory RNA.

• The book also covers developmental biology, epigenetics, systems biology, and mathematical modeling.

• Dr. Ball presents a clear overall argument for a model of life that does not view DNA as a manual that can be “wrong” and in which diseases or differences in health are natural outcomes rather than errors.

• The book is extremely dense, the reviewer suggesting that it covers the equivalent of an entire undergraduate scientific degree.

• The reviewer concludes: “I would strongly recommend the book to any researcher, PhD student or medic—in fact, anyone with a background in science. I genuinely wish that it had been available when I started my PhD. The wider perspective that Dr. Ball offers on the state of biosciences in the modern era, and some of the philosophical points he raises about what we should consider when we talk about life, are essential for any user to think about.”

More on human nature, evolution, and biotech:

• Human Evolution

  • Video: “Biological evolution has slowed. Can AI, culture wars, and modern tech explain why?” (Big Think)

  • “Seeking an ethical approach to ancient DNA analysis” (Yale News)

• Biotech

  • “Biotech potential set to soar with the help of digital technology” (Horizon/EU Commission)

  • “The continued impact of the CRISPR revolution” (PET)

  • “Who wins from nature’s genetic bounty? The billion at stake in the global ‘biopiracy’ battle” (Guardian)

• Agriculture

  • “New genomic techniques can contribute to reduced pesticide usage in Europe” (New Phytologist Foundation)

  • “Is Europe losing its cultivated meat competitive edge?” (Sifted)

  • “Drought-tolerant genetically modified wheat is okayed for import in the United States” (Reuters/GLP)

  • “Creative destruction in the plant breeding sector”: 5 breakthrough innovations in the history of agriculture (Seed World)

• Health

  • “Is progress in medicine too slow?” (Ruxandra Teslo)

Disclaimer: We cannot fact-check the linked-to stories and studies, nor do the views expressed necessarily reflect our own.