“Peanuts”

by David Benjamin

“We’ve watched babies survive at thirteen weeks and others, that be as small as an M&M wrapper and be able to have life.”
— Kevin McCarthy, House minority leader

MADISON, Wis., September 10, 2031 — A remarkable development here, in the laboratories of the University of Wisconsin, has effectively aborted America’s long nightmare over women’s right to choose. The invention of what has come to be known as the “artificial womb” has rendered moot the decades-long controversy that began with the Supreme Court’s 1973 legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade.

Even better, it has resulted in providing millions of American families with what People magazine described as “a whole new world of fun.”

A biological bombshell burst here in early 2022 when a chemist, Dr. Sheldrake Mifflin, formulated what he called“amniotic gumbo,” a clear, chemical “soup” that perfectly mimics the fluid that sustains a fetus inside a woman’s uterus. This simple breakthrough made it possible to remove — through an incision barely two inches wide — a “pre-viable” fetus from its mother, after which it can be plopped, still alive, into an aerated container full of nutrient fluids, heated to 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, that perfectly replicate the environment inside Mom.

The startling implication of this development was that a woman in an anti-abortion state like Texas could legally end her pregnancy — after six to twenty weeks —by simply transplanting her live fetus from her uterus to an “artificial womb.”

In one of his many interviews after the invention of this chemical miracle, Dr. Mifflin explained the genius in this method of preserving the lives of the “unborn.”

“It’s been clear since Roe,” he said, “that the ‘right-to-life’ folks basically just want to stop women, by any means necessary, from killing their fetuses. Once the baby pops out, it loses its ‘unborn’ halo, and the pro-lifers? They wash their hands and say, ’Hasta la vista, baby!’”

Dr. Mifflin recalled the evolution of his breakthrough. One day, while discussing the bizarre politics of abortion, he and his colleagues realized that being “unborn” was the only feature of the fetus that matters to its defenders. “They want it born, no matter what. But what does ‘born’ mean?” said Dr. Mifflin.

“Technically — this hit us that day, and we all said, ‘Wow!’ Ever since Roe, anti-abortionists have demanded that women risk their lives and future ability to bear children in order to bring ‘to term’ every fertilized egg, even if the fetus is brain-dead, hideously deformed and doomed to die within minutes after delivery. To these people, ’born’ means the tyke has to come out alive, in any stage of its growth, in any condition. And we said to ourselves, ‘We can do that!’”

Dr. Mifflin’s team immediately set to work creating a warm liquid medium that would perfectly replicate the interior of a mother. “It’s pretty simple chemistry,” said the scientist. “It took us about a month.”

Pretty soon, the UW team was dropping fetal pigs, barely the size of a pencil eraser, into the world’s first “artificial womb,” which eerily resembled an aquarium in a pet shop. The tiny piggies thrived so successfully in their bowl of “amniotic gumbo” that the professors and students caring for them, replenishing their nutrients and suctioning away the results of their infinitesimal bowel movements, gave them names, like “Porky,” “Piglet,” “Miss Piggy,”etc.

As everyone knows, the success of the artificial womb experiments with pigs, and later, fetal rhesus monkeys, created an irresistible momentum for tests with human fetuses. The first took place in February, 2024. A teenage incest victim was flown in from Lubbock, Texas. Her fetus, eight weeks old, was named “Primo” by the lab team. It was equipped with a tiny weight belt around its middle to keep it from floating to the surface and drying up. Plunked into the artificial womb, it wiggled once and then began drifting serenely among the little ceramic sea horses, pirates, sunken treasure and plastic seaweed the scientists had put into the “womb” to make Primo’s new surroundings seem more “homey.”

The scientists discovered, after transplanting dozens more itty-bitty preemies into the artificial womb, that the fetuses didn’t grow or mature. “They never aged,” said Mr. Mifflin. “Some of them are seven or eight years old now, still floating around happily, bumping into one another, absorbing nutrients and pooping their little poppy seeds. As far as we can guess, they might be immortal.”

At first, the UW team worried that the fetuses’ failure to develop might be a drawback that would trigger popular dismay and forestall the potential of the artificial womb. They discovered that the opposite was true. When the public found out that science could save countless unborn lives and simultaneously produce adorable little micro-babies — in all colors of the human rainbow — who never grew, never cried, never got sick, never learned about critical race theory and never became teenagers, the commercialization of the artificial womb became inevitable.

By 2026, the market for pre-viable fetuses passed $1 billion. Because of their size and shape, these “unwanted unborns” — or UUs — were popularly called “peanuts.” It naturally followed that the most popular names for UUs, especially among pre-adolescent girls who badgered their parents into installing artificial wombs in their rooms, were “Lucy,” “Charlie Brown,” “Linus,” “Woodstock” and “Peppermint Patty.” In 2030, according to a Gallup poll, the number of unborn fetuses named “Snoopy” exceeded one million.

With the mass production of artificial wombs — largely by companies that also serve tropical fish enthusiasts — the “peanut craze” swept the nation. Now it’s spreading to Europe and South America. Some countries have banned abortion purely to reap the economic benefits of “peanut” production. Demand has exploded to the point where, somewhat disturbingly, “fetus mills” are popping up in states that have banned abortion — including Texas, Florida and Wisconsin. These Walmart-size “clinics” serve young women — most of them less than ten weeks pregnant — who constitute a cottage industry of “peanut” vendors. With unwanted unborns selling for as much as $3,000 in states that still allow abortion, a girl who can get pregnant as often as four times a year can earn what Dr. Mifflin ruefully calls a “tidy income.”

Lately, some “fetus providers” are seeking a novel surgical procedure that creates a permanent abdominal “zipper,” facilitating repeated “peanut removals” that take less than a minute, with no need for anesthesia or recovery.

The silver lining in this remarkable trend is that the social, political and religious war over abortion in America has ended. Indeed, one of the biggest markets for UU “babies” is the pro-life community of devout Catholics and evangelicals, who feel literally commanded by Jesus to welcome the living unborn into their lives.

“If you’re a true Christian,” one former abortion-clinic protester testified, “and you don’t have a few darling little fetuses — whose lives you’ve saved — squiggling around in your goldfish bowl, well, you’re probably going straight to Hell.”