Growing a baby .... in a machine?

My father is a futurist - someone who studies and writes about technological advancements that are planned in the near-term, or what we could be seeing in about 50 years from now and beyond. One time while he was writing his daily tech blog, I asked him "do you think artificial wombs will ever be a thing?"

"Yes, they definitely will be," he responded. "I probably won't be around anymore, but it will likely happen in your lifetime."

Well, obviously it won't happen soon enough for us, but to think of that even being a possibility seems incredible. A machine that can basically do all the physical labour (literally and figuratively speaking) that a woman is required to do now in order to create a fully-formed human at nine months' gestation just seems so freeing and would break down most of the barriers for those of us who cannot have children naturally.

I decided to do a quick Google search on the subject, and based on the following article, it seems like we may even be closer to what's called "ectogenesis" than we originally thought. Here's what I found, written on September 4, 2017:

Artificial wombs could soon be a reality. What will this mean for women?

What are the other benefits of ectogenesis? It could level the playing field for women, especially in a corporate environment. But would some women still automatically assume most of the child-rearing duties anyway? And even if it means less time off work because you're not physically involved, wouldn't you want that full year off (depending on where you live, it may be much less) regardless so you can enjoy as much time with your new baby as possible?

Beyond that, there are the ethical issues. The technology would likely start out extremely expensive, which would exclude those in marginalized or poorer communities. It would also bring us closer to having the "perfect" human specimen, for which there are many arguments against. And for women who enjoy the experience of pregnancy, this would take so much joy out of the gestation period. There are even ethical arguments against the testing that was being done on lambs back in 2017. I have to admit, even I would be pretty freaked out to see an animal growing inside a "biobag."

Furthermore, if you go into research on this topic, there's the question of abortion. Without getting too political, there's some concern that in a case where a woman wanted to end the pregnancy, the baby would be extracted from the uterus and then it would spend the remainder of the nine months' gestation inside one of these machines without the woman having a choice. This is a very controversial side to the topic and it wasn't something that even crossed my mind until I started reading up on it. I also think we're not yet ready as a species to deal with a potential problem such as this one. 

But for others, it could be the perfect solution. For example, in my case it would remove all the risks to my body without having to ask a surrogate to devote a huge chunk of her life to this. In fact, the property manager at our condo who knows about our journey asked me just yesterday "can't the baby be grown another way?" When we started our journey, we had numerous doctors and nurses ask us if there was someone in our family or a friend who could be our surrogate. Unfortunately all of my female relatives are either well past childbearing age or are still children themselves. For those who don't have anyone who can help and don't want to - or are afraid to - ask a stranger to carry their baby, why not let the machine do it?

Could this become the norm one day? What are your thoughts? If you're an intended parent reading this, is this something you would consider?