Is another animal used as an artifical surrogate for humans possible?

This question asks about traditional artificial wombs viability (Is an artificial womb feasible?). I was wondering if we could take an alternative route by using a biological womb instead.

Is it possible that we could utilize animals as surrogate wombs for humans? I know that currently we have found some species can act as surrogates for closely related species children, but the majority of the time a mother's body will reject most other embryos. However, in the future we will develop new techniques and tricks, and thus could theoretically work around existing problems.

Thus we get to my question. Is it possible in the somewhat near future to develop a technique to allow us to implant a human embryo within another species and have that creature carry the embryo to term. For now you can assume surrogate situations where the mother is not available to carry, an animal does not need to be a better surrogate then a human, just as viable (or even almost as viable) as a human surrogate for situations when no human is available to be a surrogate.

If it is viable I have a few follow up questions. First, is it possible to pick from a number of animals to be a surrogate? Will we be limited to only primates, or perhaps we would have to genetically manipulate (using near future technology, so genetic engineering is still limited and must be a comparatively easy change) the creature to accept human embryos?

Second, is it reasonable to believe that this approach could be an option prior to mechanical artificial wombs being developed, since there is no reason to go this route if we have viable artificial wombs to use.

posted over 9 years ago

dsollen‭

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