The Myth of the Pregnant Robot

January 19, 2026
Author: Juan Manuel Palomares Cantero
Versión en español

What if technology could gestate life for us? In recent months, videos have circulated about supposed “pregnant robots” that blur science, fiction, and fear. More than a real breakthrough, the phenomenon reveals something deeper: what does this fascination say about the way we understand the body, motherhood, and technology?

Technological Rumor as a Cultural Symptom

In recent years, stories have spread very quickly about supposed technological advances capable of radically transforming fundamental aspects of human life, such as the body, motherhood, or reproduction. These stories are rarely presented as projects in an experimental phase or as future possibilities; they are usually shown as nearly accomplished realities. More than informing, they aim to shock and inspire awe. Their strength lies not so much in the evidence they offer, but in their ability to connect with a widespread idea in our time: that every technological advance is inevitable and, sooner or later, will become reality.

This ease of believing does not arise out of nowhere. It responds to a fascination with technology that runs through our culture today and shapes our expectations¹. Technology is perceived as a quick solution to complex problems, while reflection, verification, and critical analysis are often seen as unnecessary brakes. In this context, scientific criteria do not disappear, but they lose weight in the face of the speed at which information circulates. A culture of immediacy makes it difficult to pause and understand long, gradual, and complex processes².

From this perspective, technological rumor should not be understood only as a mistake or a lie, but as a revealing narrative. It reflects deep fears - such as the sense that the human body is becoming obsolete or that control over life is being lost - and also intense desires: to eliminate fragility, avoid waiting, and replace dependence with efficiency. Thus, rumor functions as a cultural mirror: it speaks less about what technology can already do, and more about what our society expects - and fears - it will eventually do for us³.

What Science Is Actually Researching: Partial Ectogenesis

When people talk about “artificial wombs,” it is important to clearly distinguish between what science is investigating today and what belongs more to the realm of technological imagination. In general terms, an artificial womb is a biomedical device designed to reproduce some of the functions of the maternal womb, mainly in order to support the development of extremely premature fetuses outside the mother’s body⁴,⁵.

Current research does not seek to replace human gestation from its beginning, but to improve the chances of survival and development for babies born too early. In this context, people speak of partial ectogenesis, that is, extracorporeal support that complements a pregnancy already underway in the maternal womb. Experiments with animals - such as lambs kept in devices filled with artificial amniotic fluid - have shown promising results, but always within highly controlled frameworks and for strictly therapeutic purposes⁶.

To date, there is no case of complete human gestation carried out outside a woman’s body, nor are there clinically available technologies that allow an embryo to develop from conception to birth in an artificial environment. So-called total ectogenesis - a gestation entirely “in a machine” - remains a theoretical hypothesis that poses enormous medical, ethical, and legal challenges⁷

This distinction is key. Understanding it is not a medical technicality, but a basic condition for not being carried away by stories that exaggerate what science can really do today. Biomedical support for premature babies responds to a logic of care and protection of vulnerable life, whereas the idea of total artificial gestation is often presented as a futuristic promise that does not reflect the real state of science. Grasping this difference makes it possible to deactivate the myth without mockery: it is not about denying technological advances, but about placing them precisely, avoiding confusing responsible research with exaggerated narratives that feed unrealistic expectations⁸.

The Underlying Mistake: Confusing Function with Meaning

Much of the confusion surrounding so-called “artificial wombs” is explained not only by media exaggeration, but by a deeper and more widespread error: the tendency to understand the human body only as a set of functions that can be replaced, replicated, or improved technically. From this logic, if a function can be carried out outside the body - gestating, nourishing, protecting - it would seem legitimate to transfer it to a device without major consequences.

Against this functional reduction, bioethics holds that the body is not an object we possess, but an expression of what we are. Through the body we connect with others, establish relationships, and assume responsibilities. Human dignity does not depend on functional capacities, but on the very fact of being a person, which prevents treating the body as a mere technical means⁹.

From this perspective, motherhood cannot be understood as a simple efficient biological process. Gestating is not the same as producing, because gestation involves a relationship marked by dependence, vulnerability, and mutual care. Our relationship with the other begins precisely in responsibility for their fragility, not in controlling them¹⁰. The attempt to eliminate all uncertainty in the name of efficiency ends up impoverishing the human meaning of that experience.

Something similar happens when care is redefined as optimization. Caring is not only about intervening better or faster, but about responding ethically to the other’s vulnerability, recognizing their limits and our own. True care integrates technical competence and solicitude for the person, without reducing them to an object of intervention¹¹.

In this key, the central risk is not technology itself, but the instrumentalization of the body and of life, when what is technically possible is confused with what is humanly desirable, and we lose sight of the fact that not everything valuable can be measured in terms of performance or control¹².

Between Progress and Limits: The Necessary Bioethical Question

Faced with real advances - and exaggerated stories - about reproductive technology, bioethics cannot be reduced to a brake that stops progress or to an authority that simply says “no.” Its main task is different: to help us discern, that is, to think calmly about which uses of technology genuinely promote the human good and which risk blurring it. In a context marked by speed and technological fascination, this function is more necessary than ever.

To speak of discernment is to recover the idea of reasonable limits. Not every limit is an arbitrary prohibition; many limits exist to protect what is valuable and fragile. Contemporary technological power forces us to broaden our responsibility, not only toward those who live today, but also toward future generations, whose living conditions depend on the decisions we make now¹³. Prudence, in this sense, is not fear of change, but awareness of its possible consequences.

From this perspective, bioethics reminds us that technical progress must be accompanied by intergenerational responsibility. Decisions that affect the beginning of life, the body, and reproduction are not neutral: they shape imaginaries, practices, and social expectations that endure over time. For this reason, it is problematic to normalize discourses in which the body appears as a nuisance to be overcome, technology as the instance that decides, and the person as a secondary or diffuse reality.

When these discourses become habitual, the risk is not only technical but cultural. A society that absolutizes efficiency tends to erase the experience of fragility and dependence, central elements of the human condition¹⁴. Bioethics, then, prepares the ground for the decisive question: not only what we can do with technology, but what kind of humanity we are willing to build with it.

Conclusions

The so-called “myth of the pregnant robot” should not be read only as a viral anecdote or as a simple case of technological misinformation. Rather, it functions as a cultural symptom that reveals the way we imagine today the relationship between body, technology, and human life. The central problem is not technology itself, nor the real advances of reproductive medicine, but the narrative we build around them and the expectations that narrative generates.

Throughout this analysis it has become clear that today’s science is not gestating life in machines, but seeking to better care for vulnerable life, especially in the case of premature babies. However, when these advances are presented out of context and amplified through narratives of total efficiency and absolute control, the risk arises of confusing care with production, gestation with a technical process, and the body with an obstacle that must be overcome.

In this scenario, bioethics appears not as a voice that slows progress, but as a guardian of meaning. Its task is to remind us that human dignity is not measured by functionality, that the body is not an interchangeable object, and that technology finds legitimacy only when it remains at the service of the person. In the face of a sped-up world, bioethics introduces a necessary pause: a space to ask ourselves not only whether something is possible, but whether it is desirable and for whom.

Likewise, bioethical reflection acts as a defender of intergenerational responsibility, warning about the cultural effects of normalizing discourses where technology decides, the body gets in the way, and the person dissolves. The decisions we make today about reproduction, the beginning of life, and the use of technology shape the human horizon that those not yet born will inherit.

Perhaps the most fitting image to close this reflection is not that of a machine gestating life, but an everyday scene: a screen endlessly scrolling, an impactful video shared without verification, and a technology that promises immediate solutions to profoundly human realities. When technology stops asking about the concrete person - vulnerable, relational, and finite - it ceases to be progress and becomes mere capacity without orientation. The future worth building is not the fastest or the most sophisticated, but the one that remains profoundly human.

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Juan Manuel Palomares Cantero holds a law degree, and is also a teacher and PhD in Bioethics from Universidad Anáhuac México. He has served as Director of Human Capital, as well as Director and General Coordinator in the Faculty of Bioethics. He currently works as a researcher in the Academic Office for Integral Formation at the same university, where he promotes projects on professional ethics, open reason, and integral formation. He is a member of the Mexican National Academy of Bioethics, the Latin American and Caribbean Federation of Bioethics Institutions (FELAIBE), and the National System of Researchers at the Candidate level. His work combines philosophical reflection with educational action, promoting a humanistic vision of bioethics at the service of the person and the common good.
This article was assisted in its writing by the use of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence tool developed by OpenAI.

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