Outer Origin (2024)

A Discourse on Ectogenesis and the Value of Human Experience

Outer Origin offers readers up-to-date information on the development of artificial womb technology. It further explores the value of pregnancy and childbirth in the 21st century and questions the notion that synthetic wombs will lead to full equality of the sexes.

“Elegantly written and impeccably researched, Outer Origin urges readers to consider the social, moral, and ethical consequences of ‘extra-uterine destining.’ Using the disparate lenses of history, philosophy, science, literature, feminism, and more, Laura Johnson Dahlke has created an absorbing and wide-ranging study of childbirth and what was once only the stuff of sci-fi novels. An essential, provocative read!”

- Jody Keisner, associate professor of English, University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Available now at: Amazon.com, wipfandstock.com, and Barnes & Noble (Paperback) / (eBook)

Select Sample of Laura’s Related Publications

“11 Reasons to Avoid Back-Lying in Childbirth” parent.co 4 Oct. 2016. Web.

“Upright Birthing Positions: Why Don’t Obstetricians Use Them More?” momaha.com 22 Sept. 2015. Web.

“‘Every Father Feels Himself a Joseph’: Men Writing Their Childbirth Experiences.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 42.7 (2013): 800-15. Print.

 “Book Review of Men at Birth by David Vernon.Journal of Men’s Studies, 19 (2011): 85. Print.

“Essays on Childbirth: The Why and How.” Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 38.5 (2009): 577-96. Print.

“Plath’s ‘Lady Lazarus.’” The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. 9-11th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006, 2007. Print. 2010. Web.

“Plath’s ‘Lady Lazarus.’” The Explicator, 60.4 (2002): 234-35. Print.