…from the July, 1956 issue
The Doclopedia #1,155
Dolls: Miracle Baby
On an Earth where several factors came together to drastically lower the birth rate anywhere from 60% to 90%, The desire to have babies drove people to do extreme and often tragic things. Eventually, the World Council made all crimes related to baby acquisition (aside from legal adoption) punishable by death and that calmed things down.
To deal with the lack of infants, the world’s largest toy manufacturer teamed up with the world’s largest robot maker to create Miracle Baby, the most realistic baby doll ever. They behaved exactly as a baby would, even increasing in size and appearance from a 7 pound newborn to a 12 pound crawler. They even ate, peed and pooped. They cost $7,500 in US dollars and 50 million were sold in 3 years.
By year 4, Miracle Toddler came out and most folks traded in their Miracle Babies, which were quickly refurbished and recycled.
It should be noted that as new Miracle Children got older, sales dropped off fast. The company didn’t even bother with Miracle Tweens and the thought of Miracle Teens was never even considered.
The Miracle Baby line was produced for 43 years, finally stopping when humans on Earth started dying off at ever increasing rates. About 30 years later, scientists on the moon were able to send a programming upgrade that made all of the robot dolls sentient, so that they could take care of the few remaining humans on Earth.
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