I should have worn heels -- life at 5'3"

11:26 am - 23rd Century Technology

This is not my original thought - though it IS presented in Jen-speak.  I was either talking to someone earlier this week and can't remember who, or I heard this from a caller who called in during an interview with J.J. Abrams on Fresh Air.  Either way, the question that was postulated has stuck with me for days.

So, there have been a few babies born during the various episodes and movies in the Star Trek universe.  Of all the ones I've seen (and I haven't seen them all, I'm sure, because I have not watched every single spin-off), the birthing scene always has the same huffing and puffing of the mother trying to push the watermelon out of the lemon-sized exit.  (Well, I'm assuming from the huffing and puffing that the aliens had similar object-to-opening size ratio... damn it Jim, I'm a writer not an obgyn!) 

And here's the question... why not just use transporter technology to beam the kid directly from the womb to the doctor's awaiting hands?  Bypass all the huffing and puffing and pushing (and blood and tearing and mucus plugs and all the other stuff they usually don't show on cable TV or IMAX - and really, I don't EVER have to see a birth on IMAX.  Really, really.  That is going a few light years too far.  Birth - in high-def on a 29 Ft screen.  No thank you.  But I digress.)  I mean if Kirk's crew can beam a couple of humpback whales (one of which was pregnant) and however many tons of seawater into the cargo bay of a Klingon ship, then surely a baby (or two), a placenta and some amniotic fluid would be a piece of cake. 

I'm just sayin'.