>>such as synthetic wombs that are far more hospitable than today's
>>biological womb. When this happens, (and it is just around the
>>corner), the entire act of procreation from fertilization to
>>delivery will occur outside the transhuman body.
>
>The "Axolotl Tanks" of the Theilaxu in Frank Herberts "Dune"
>series.
The `Axolotl Tanks', as we learn in the final volume of the sequence
(IIRC), were slave human women, or perhaps their remnants. Dirty Tleilaxu
indeed! Cf. the `sexual stumps', if that's what they were called, in Frank
Herbert's 1973 HELSTROM'S HIVE. Let's see now... `Each bench carried what
appeared to be the stump of a human body from the waist to the knees. Some
were grossly male and some female. Among the females were a few whose
abdomens bulged as though they were pregnant. Beyond the waist and knees
there was nothing that could be thought of as flesh - only that tubing with
its pulsing colors' (pp. 280-1). Thanks, Frank.
Wait a moment -- `Frank'???
Damien Broderick