However, haven't we roughly recreated the process in a lab in the last couple of decades?

And we may never have the answer because we simply can't know because no one was there because nothing was there. But there's a plausible enough explanation that we don't need to invoke the extraterrestrial and all of its problems.

And I think that's part of the appeal of panspermia, it makes life extraterrestrial. And if it is extraterrestrial in origin, then it could have happened elsewhere. Whereas if the genesis of life is contained to Earth, then the chances go down that it happened somewhere else.