The Artificial Womb: Speculative Design Meets the Sociotechnical History of Reproductive Labor

Researchers from Máxima Medical Centre in Eindhoven and Eindhoven University of Technology expect to have developed a prototype of an artificial womb by 2025. In collaboration with this team, speculative designers have designed a prototype of the artificial womb and organized an accompanying design-fiction exhibition. The exhibition imagined scenarios meant to spark debates about the ways in which the artificial womb might alter our attitude toward reproduction. This chapter shows how the prototype of the artificial womb has affinities with several past imaginations of women’s bodies as sites of ongoing contestation and exploitation. This simultaneously taps into a range of medical historical considerations and age-old ideas about reproduction and motherhood. Situating the prototype-design of the artificial womb in such historical settings with a philosopher’s eye for potential associations enables me to illustrate the wide ramifications of interdisciplinary collaborations between the arts, humanities, and sciences.