What are the ethical, legal, and social debates surrounding artificial womb technology? A scoping review protocol.

IF 3.9 4区医学 Q1 MEDICINE, GENERAL & INTERNAL

Systematic Reviews Pub Date : 2025-10-17 DOI:10.1186/s13643-025-02940-x

Srishti Hukku, L L Wynn, Angel M Foster

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Background: Ectogenesis-the development of the fetus outside the human uterus-is generally attributed to British scientist J.B.S. Haldane as early as 1924. Although efforts to develop artificial womb technology have seen limited success, a number of recent advances suggest that human clinical trials may become possible. The objective of this scoping review is to identify the ethical, legal, and social debates that have emerged regarding the future prospects of artificial womb technology.

Methods: We will use a pre-defined five-step framework to guide this scoping review. Our primary research question is: "What are the ethical, legal, and social debates surrounding AWT?" We will identify relevant peer-reviewed studies in which the full text is in English from electronic databases including Scopus, PubMed, JSTOR, Proquest, Medline, LexisNexis, Westlaw, HeinOnline, and DOAJ. We will employ a two-stage process to identify relevant articles by (1) searching for articles in databases using keywords and 2) conducting a hand search of the reference lists of all retrieved articles to find any relevant sources not indexed by these databases or keywords. Two independent reviewers will select articles by screening titles/abstracts followed by a full-text appraisal using standardized inclusion criteria. We will extract and synthesize the data and develop a narrative summary with accompanying tables and figures. The final output will adhere to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis Extension for Scoping Reviews checklist.

Discussion: The scoping review will document evidence and gaps in the evidence of key areas of focus for academics, clinicians, scientists, legislators, and public policy decision-makers as they consider how to move forward with artificial womb technology. Given the novelty of this technology, we anticipate that we will identify significant gaps that may inform future research and promote a proactive approach to the modernization of legislation, regulatory frameworks, and existing policies and guidelines that may govern this technology.

Systematic review registration: We have registered this scoping review protocol with OSF Registries: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/D8Q96 .

查看原文本刊更多论文

围绕人工子宫技术的伦理、法律和社会争论是什么？范围审查协议。

背景：早在1924年，英国科学家J.B.S.霍尔丹（J.B.S. Haldane）就认为胚胎是在人类子宫外发育的。尽管开发人工子宫技术的努力取得了有限的成功，但最近的一些进展表明，人体临床试验可能成为可能。本综述的目的是确定关于人工子宫技术未来前景的伦理、法律和社会争论。方法：我们将使用预先定义的五步框架来指导范围审查。我们的主要研究问题是：“围绕AWT的伦理、法律和社会争论是什么？”我们将从Scopus、PubMed、JSTOR、Proquest、Medline、LexisNexis、Westlaw、HeinOnline和DOAJ等电子数据库中找出相关的同行评议研究，其中全文为英文。我们将采用两个阶段的过程来识别相关文章：(1)使用关键字在数据库中搜索文章；(2)对所有检索到的文章的参考文献列表进行手动搜索，以查找未被这些数据库或关键字索引的相关来源。两名独立审稿人将通过筛选标题/摘要来选择文章，然后使用标准化的纳入标准进行全文评估。我们将提取和综合数据，并形成一个带有表格和数字的叙述性总结。最终的输出将遵循系统评审的首选报告项目和范围评审的元分析扩展清单。讨论：范围审查将为学者、临床医生、科学家、立法者和公共政策决策者在考虑如何推进人工子宫技术时，记录重点领域的证据和证据差距。鉴于这项技术的新颖性，我们预计我们将发现重大差距，这些差距可能会为未来的研究提供信息，并促进积极主动的立法、监管框架以及可能管理该技术的现有政策和指导方针的现代化。系统评审注册：我们已经在OSF注册中心（https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/D8Q96）注册了这个范围评审方案。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Systematic Reviews Medicine-Medicine (miscellaneous)

CiteScore

8.30

自引率

0.00%

发文量

241

审稿时长

11 weeks

期刊介绍： Systematic Reviews encompasses all aspects of the design, conduct and reporting of systematic reviews. The journal publishes high quality systematic review products including systematic review protocols, systematic reviews related to a very broad definition of health, rapid reviews, updates of already completed systematic reviews, and methods research related to the science of systematic reviews, such as decision modelling. At this time Systematic Reviews does not accept reviews of in vitro studies. The journal also aims to ensure that the results of all well-conducted systematic reviews are published, regardless of their outcome.