As bemusing as it is to imagine Boris Johnson scratching his head over Barbie, I was pleased to see him pick out the challenge to modernity nestled amongst the bubblegum pink hues: “[Barbieland] has children, but no babies. It is a parable about the destiny of humanity.”
What could have been a local news item has taken on the scale of a national scandal and revived a long-lasting controversy: can killing a child in the womb of its mother be considered homicide?
Chinese scientists have developed a robotic ‘nanny’ to care for an artificial womb. They assert that this robotic method will be more efficient than natural pregnancy, and sociologists hope that it will also solve the problem of plummeting birth rates in China.
