>> I wrote a novel about this topic a few years ago (Evil Interrupted).
Available on the Internet?
Frank Herbert explored the concept in 1973's Hellstrom's Hive, where the subjects in question were referred to as "reproductive stumps:"
He stared at the objects, unwilling to believe his eyes were reporting accurately. Each bench carried what appeared to be the stump of a human body from about the waist to the knees. Some were grossly male and some female. Among the females were a few whose abdomens bulged as though they were pregnant. Beyond waist and knees there was nothing that could be thought of as flesh -- only that tubing with its pulsing colors. Could they be real?. . . .He saw people parading along the benches there, bending, studying the stumps, examining the tubing. It was like a caricature of doctors doing their rounds. . . .
Those were human reproductive sections. He could imagine Hellstrom's hive keeping those monstrosities alive for breeding purposes. The thought of his own flesh subjected to such indignity sent shudders coursing through him. . . .Reproductive stumps!
The "axlotl tanks" of the Bene Tlielax in the Dune series were also revealed to be brain-dead women and their wombs.
To think that in less than forty years humanity has descended so far that such a concept could be openly entertained outside of hard science fiction novels. It's hard to even imagine.