In 1924, John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, aka JBS Haldane, published Daedalus; or Science and The Future, hereafter Daedalus, which was a written version of a lecture that he gave in 1923. In his book, Haldane offers his personal predictions about what science will be able to achieve by the year 2073. He proposes that scientists will be able to perform ectogenesis, which he defines as the gestation of an organism in an artificial environment. He argues that the development of ectogenesis will help improve the human species by facilitating the selective breeding of individuals with desirable traits. Haldane’s vision of ectogenesis in Daedalus foreshadowed in vitro fertilization, or IVF, an assisted-reproductive technology in which scientists fertilize an egg in a laboratory dish, then implant the resulting embryo into a woman’s uterus where it then develops into a fetus. As of 2025, physicians deliver over 500,000 infants per year who were conceived using assisted-reproductive technologies such as IVF. Haldane’s concept of ectogenesis as he described it in Daedalus inspired both supportive and critical responses among readers and has shaped discussions about reproductive technologies down to the present day.

In 1970, Shulamith Firestone, a self-described radical feminist and writer, published The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, hereafter The Dialectic of Sex. In the book, she argues for the replacement of natural reproduction with artificial reproduction in order to provide women liberation from their reproductive biology. Firestone envisions a day when scientific technology will enable children to be conceived and grown completely outside of a woman’s uterus, what scientists call ectogenesis. At the time of publication, the technology to enable ectogenesis did not exist, although forms of assisted reproduction, such as in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination, were starting to be developed. The Dialectic of Sex was one of the first feminist publications supporting ectogenesis, and, as of 2025, it continues to stimulate thinking among many researchers and ethicists who study the implications of new reproductive technologies for women.