The World Economic Forum is not banning natural conception

Claims that the World Economic Forum (WEF) is banning natural conception and insisting “all babies must be lab-grown by 2030” are being shared online.

This is false. The WEF has not said this and has no authority to enforce such a rule.

The WEF is an international non-governmental organisation known for its annual conference in Davos attended by politicians and business people. The WEF says it “engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas”. Klaus Schwab, who is mentioned in the video, is the organisation’s founder.

Claims like these can spread quickly online and be difficult to contain. They can cause unnecessary fear about the future especially if people believe their rights might be taken away. 

We often fact check misleading claims regarding the WEF and Klaus Schwab. We recently checked a number of false claims the WEF was advocating for a social credit system, the end of national sovereignty and confining people to 15 minute cities.

Although this post doesn’t explicitly mention the WEF’s Great Reset initiative (which is essentially about revamping capitalism to help avoid another depression following the economic downturn due to Covid-19), we’ve previously checked lots of misinformation about that too. 

Mr Schwab is often the subject of misinformation. We’ve debunked false claims that he was arrested for pandemic-related crimes, that Ukraine is enacting his ‘Great Reset’, that he wrote a book about organising pandemics and that he’s related to the Rothschilds.

mRNA vaccines don’t change your DNA

The full video claims: “Not content with editing the genes of everybody who signed up to the experimental mRNA jab, the global elite are now threatening to edit the genes of our children”.

This is false—the mRNA Covid-19 vaccines have no way of altering your DNA.

The video then shows footage of lambs that were successfully supported in a transparent “biobag”, which were moved to these artificial wombs from at least 105 days of gestation.

Making egg cells from male cells in mice

The man in the video then goes on to say: “Growing human babies from scratch in a lab could be possible in just five years, thanks to a new breakthrough. Now WEF-funded researchers in Japan are on the cusp of being able to create human eggs and sperm in a lab from scratch, without the need for human sexual reproduction.”

The Daily Mail article on screen discusses the work of scientists at Kyushu University in Japan who managed to create egg cells out of male mice cells, which were then successfully fertilised by mice sperm cells to create several healthy mice.

The New Scientist reported the lead researcher, Katsuhiko Hayashi, as saying: “Over 600 embryos were then implanted into female mice, resulting in seven apparently healthy pups.”

Full Fact could find no evidence that this research was funded by the WEF. We’ve contacted the WEF to confirm this, and will update this article if we receive a response.

According to the Guardian, Mr Hayashi “predicts that it will be technically possible to create a viable human egg from a male skin cell within a decade”, rather than five years as the video appears to claim.

Whether this research shows scientists are on the “cusp” of creating human egg and sperm cells from scratch is a matter of opinion. 

But according to Rod Mitchell, Professor of Developmental Endocrinology at the University of Edinburgh, speaking via the Science Media Centre, although the research is an important breakthrough it’s not clear how easily this might translate to humans. 

He said: “Its potential application for humans (e.g. for same-sex couples) remains to be seen. In the mouse study, very few of the embryos generated using mouse cells resulted in live offspring and the final steps required to convert germ cells into eggs have not been reliably reproduced using human cells.”

Yuval Harari does not work for the WEF 

The video then claims that “Klaus Schwab’s right hand man [the author Yuval Harari] who is known as the prophet among the Davos crowd, has doubled down on the elite’s plans to play God.

“In his deeply disturbing manifesto Homo Deus, A Brief History of Tomorrow, Harari drops strong hints about the traits the elites are planning to gene edit into future generations of compliant docile human beings, by building a genetic child catalogue.”

The video then plays part of an audio recording of the book which discusses the idea of genetic engineering and does mention a “genetic child catalogue”. 

This is done within the context of discussing gene editing to fight deadly diseases and then the theoretical possibility of gene editing to ensure a child does or doesn’t have certain other traits. Before the section read out in the video, Mr Harari writes [p54]: “Suppose a genetic test indicates that your would-be daughter will in all likelihood be smart, beautiful and kind – but will suffer from chronic depression. Wouldn’t you want to save her from years of misery by a quick and painless intervention in the test tube?” 

The book does not mention anything about banning natural conception or forcing people to edit their children’s genes.

Mr Harari does have a profile on the WEF’s website and spoke at the 2020 and 2018 Davos meetings. He is a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has written several books.

A spokesperson for Mr Harari told Full Fact he has never worked for the WEF or met Klaus Schwab in person.

They added that the video represented “a common misrepresentation of Harari's commentary” and that actually his writing and interviews are often “warning about the potential dangers of new technologies and the need to consider the ethical, social and political implications of the rapid changes surrounding us”.

The WEF has also previously told Reuters that Mr Harari doesn’t work for the WEF. 

Though it’s no doubt influential, even if the WEF did endorse such a policy to enforce gene editing or limiting natural conception, it doesn’t have the authority to change laws. The UK is not a ‘member’ of the WEF though it is involved in some of its initiatives. 

‘Ectolife’ artificial womb facility doesn’t exist 

The man in the video then claims: “In this future, the global state will own everything. They will even own us. The implementation of this plan is already underway.” 

The video then shows video clips of what a voiceover announces is: “Ectolife, the world’s first artificial womb facility, powered entirely by renewable energy.”

This “facility” doesn’t exist and there are no plans for it. 

The Ectolife video is the product of Hashem Al-Ghaili, who describes himself in a press release for the concept as a producer, filmmaker and science communicator. 

Mr Al-Ghaili told Full Fact that the video is “just a concept intended to highlight technological progress” and is not real.

Artificial wombs have been used to grow lambs and mice foetuses for short periods, but not humans. Scientists in the Netherlands are working on artificial wombs for premature babies but have created nothing like what is shown in the video.

One version of the video shared on social media features what appears to be a screenshot of a tweet from the WEF saying “Natural births are outdated discriminatory acts of violence”. There is no evidence the organisation (or indeed anyone) has ever tweeted that.

Image courtesy of Christian Bowen