Dystopian Infertility, Eugenics, and falling birthrates.

'As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices' - Miriam, Children of Men

The notion of propagation of the human race is not only about creating a future; it is about creating a legacy to make our existence appear less futile. Dystopian futures have often referred to a world where having children is not necessary or a good idea. In Aldous Huxley's Brave, New World, children are decanted en masse, removing the need for traditional reproduction. In Cormac Mc Carthy's The Road, having a child could mean the next meal for your family. Even Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games shows a poverty-stricken future where children compete to the death. The concept of the family unit is threatened in these visions. But what about fiction that deals with the inability to have children? What if the world is dying because there are no more children, and how does this affect society?

I have chosen three texts, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, PD James's Children of Men, and Jane Rogers's The Testament of Jessie Lamb, to represent different interpretations of infertility and reproductive anxieties future.

These worlds are in the throes of death, whether they accept it as a fact or not.

An important factor to note with each of these texts is their different political and cultural backdrop. The Handmaid's Tale, written in 1985, envisions an alternative reality of Republican America based on military and religious ideologies. The women in the this new Republic of Gilead are, for the most part, infertile. At the same time, those that can have children are forced to reproduce with officers from the military. Children of Men is set in Britain in 2021 but was written in 1992. There have been no births in 25 years at the point that the novel starts. This changes when an undesirable young woman becomes pregnant. This society is not as strictly tiered as that of The Handmaid's Tale. Still, it shows a world that is slowly decaying, filled with apathy and secularism. The last infertility text is The Testament of Jessie Lamb, written in 2011, is set in the present day. The novel tells the story of teenage Jessie, partially through her own diary, as women begin to contract a virus that kills them when they become pregnant. The result of this is that women are generally unwilling to become pregnant. Society begins to fragment even more once the propagation of the human race seems impossible. These factions, ranging from feminists to scientists and religious orders, all blame each other for the inevitable downfall of the human race. When a possible cure is announced, however, Jessie decides to donate herself as a vessel to make a final contribution to the human race.

Although these three novels are based on a similar premise, the end result for each is quite unique. Yes, these societies are falling apart, but each is doing in its own way. Each was written in a different decade, and in the case of The Handmaid's Tale, a different country. Religion and moral conservatism are the sources of power and the hierarchical structure in Gilead. Sex is for reproductive purposes only. Every action the Republic takes is defended with scripture and the hypocritical ideologies of self-sacrifice:

'Give me children, or else I die. Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear fruit upon my knees, that I may also have children by her'.

It is indicated that a religious coup and nuclear explosion ruin society. Religion as a controlling factor is shown to stifle growth. It chooses to ignore the scientific ramifications surrounding reproduction and is not conducive to continuing the human race. This has strong connotations of the alliance between the Reagan era and the rise of the Christian Right. Both of which were opposed to creating equality for women. Both were concerned with the conservation of the traditional family model within a capitalist society. So in Atwood's work, we see the dreams of these groups become a reality. The result is a bleak chauvinistic state, where logic is ignored, as Offred states:

'there is no such thing as a sterile man anymore, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and barren women; that's the law.'

Offred fears for her life as the Commander is confirmed by his wife Serena Joy as being sterile. Sterility is blamed on the women, the women who nearly had it all. The women who were just starting to develop careers, have families, and control their own reproduction. These women were just starting to get where they wanted to be. Now, these women are merely seen as vessels, passive and unimportant, with only one function.

A major difference between Atwood's work and that of PD James's is the presence of religion. Children of Men is about society falling apart under a totalitarian regime, failed by science. It is only when a miracle of religious proportions happens that there is any hope for the future. This society is more of a secular society and is relatively religion-free. Society has disintegrated over the last 25 years and is continuing to do so. In fact, religion and morality have taken such a back seat in this society that 'assisted' suicide is recommended, and penal colonies have been set up on the Isle of Man. Democracy is non-existent, and sex has no consequences. Theo Falon is approached by a woman called Julian. She wants to reform and hopes to use Theo's position as cousin to the ruler Xan to get it. Theo finds out that she is pregnant and is in danger. Her child may be taken away from her and used as a symbol for the society she despises. Julian's position as a pregnant woman becomes almost ironic. She has been classified as unfit for scientific testing to fix reproduction because she has a malformed hand. Science is implicitly condemned for ignoring her potential. Still, as the novel progresses, the miraculous scale of her pregnancy is assessed in religious terms. Religion is the saviour in this tale, as the unexplainable conception provides hope for the future as Theo christens the newborn child almost immediately:

'His tears were falling now over the child's forehead. From some far childhood memory he recalled the rite. The water had to flow, there were words which had to be said. It was with a thumb wet with his own tears and stained with her blood that he made on the child's forehead the sign of the cross.'

However, there are several differences between the book and the film, which are interesting in this context. Firstly, the novel states that it is men who are infertile. In the 2006 film, it is the women who are infertile. Is male sterility still a sensitive issue for men? Not only has this point surfaced in The Handmaid's Tale but again here. The film also directly addresses anti-immigration sentiment by replacing Julian's character with the black refugee Kee. Again, the religious connotations are clear here - Kee's pregnancy is a virgin birth, unlike Julian's. She is also without a home. These Christian motifs make Kee the virgin Mary and her child, that will begin a new way of life, the baby Jesus. Although religion has often been depicted as systematically oppressing women, these ideologies offer hope in Children of Men.

The Last Testament of Jessie Lamb is again set in England, a few months in the future. Its release amidst the series of riots throughout the UK reinforces the bleak nature of recession as different sections of the population blame each other for its decay. Again this is a relatively secular society; religion is one of many small voices trying to be heard. Society is overwhelmed by negativity and collapses in on itself because of Maternal Death Syndrome. The causes of this virus are never fully explained, although it is attributed to biological terrorism. This adds to the paranoia of Jessie's reality, and we witness several factions blaming each other for this disease. The lack of unity destroys lives as women who desperately want children kidnap toddlers, teenage boys rape girls with no consequence, and dissident groups employ terrorist tactics.

In The Handmaid's Tale, there are doctors and tests available, but science is redundant for the most part. The absence of science in this vision only reinforces the religious ethos of Gilead. As far as this religious fundamentalism is concerned, the two cannot properly co-exist. Children of Men takes a positive view of religion, or more precisely Christianity, and favours it over science. It shows how science has failed this society. Aiming to recreate reproduction by choosing the best physical specimens possible has left those that may have some deficiencies behind. It is these very people, like Julian, who can save humanity from extinction. The text that provides the biggest focus on science is The Testament of Jessie Lamb. Her father is a scientist involved in finding a cure for MDS. Though the novel treats science with some skepticism, it favours it over the Noahs' religious cult. Although it acknowledges that biological terrorism was most likely the cause, it endeavours to fix the situation. Scientists grow fertilized embryos and then implant them into girls who volunteer. These fetuses are often clones, as Jessie is implanted later with a clone of her father. These moral implications and the variety of public opinions are voiced throughout and worked through in a logical way that does not succumb to the hysteria that often accompanies the fear of technological intervention in reproduction.

There is another scientific element to these texts that should be addressed. In 1904 sociologist Francis Galton defined the science of eugenics as 'the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage.' Modern definitions of this term vary considerably from research into gay genes to the population control of China's well-known one-child policy. The initial use of eugenics was mainly concerned with the hope of creating a stronger human race without mental or physical defects. Often around this period, the popular term was also applied to the poor who were considered inherently genetically deficient because of their social status. These 'bad' traits were not considered the result of the environment they had been born into but as part of their actual inferior biological makeup. Marie Stopes, an advocate of contraceptives and eugenics, also condoned the idea that the 'inferior, the depraved, and the feeble-minded' should not be able to reproduce. She advocated for the 'sterilization of those totally unfit for parenthood [to be] made an immediate possibility, indeed made compulsory.

This is still an issue in modern society. In 1997, Barbara Harris started a campaign called Project Prevention, offering men and women with addiction problems money in exchange for their sterilization. One of her key donors was Republican Richard Strife, a financier of the US right. Her campaigns did not just focus on alcoholics and drugs addicts. In 2010 she told the Guardian that she wanted to extend her campaign to Haitai, where women were too poor to feed their children, and Africa, where women with HIV were having babies. Harris was dictating who should and should not have children.

Eugenics is relevant to these texts on quite a few levels. The Handmaid's Tale presents us with women who can conceive but are considered unfit to raise their own children. In fact, they are given to aging wives of commanders who have forced compliance from the maids. Suppose these older men and women are considered at the peak of the evolutionary chain. Should they not be the ones reproducing? Is this indicating that those who were previously considered weak are now the next stage in evolution? In Children of Men, Julian becomes pregnant, a girl whose minor deformity rendered her ineligible genetic testing. She was considered unfit stock the future of the human race, yet she has managed to reproduce unaided.

More interestingly, perhaps the 2006 film replaces Julian's character with Kee, a black refugee, indicative of anti-immigration sentiment in Britain. Kee's pregnancy may have even been seen as a move to extend her parasitic abilities in an ordinary situation by conservatives. Both Kee and Julian are the underdogs when examining them through the lens of either social or racial eugenics. These are the people that eugenicists would have sought to breed out, yet they are the very ones multiplying. Jessie also represents another unlikely social grouping for having a child. As MDS is rampant, all teenage girls are forced to use long-lasting contraception to avoid death. She, however, is willing to donate herself and her life to carry a child. Yet, she represents an undesirable social group for pregnancy - a teenager - and a teenager that willingly becomes pregnant. A willingly pregnant teenage mother brings programming like contemporary daytime talk shows to mind. Still, in this context, Jessie is a saviour. The Testament of Jessie Lamb literally brings the ideology of the disease of teenage pregnancy to life.

Many women who cannot conceive in these texts become hysterical, depressed, or even suicidal. In Children of Men, women have baptism ceremonies and parties for kittens and push dolls around in prams:

'Theo made to pass them, eyes tactfully averted, but the two women almost barred his way and, smiling the meaningless smile of the half-demented, thrust forward the bundles, inviting his admiration. The two kittens, ears flattened beneath the ribboned bonnets looked both ridiculous and endearing.'

Jessie's aunt becomes depressed and is admitted, sedated, and allowed to die slowly. Kidnappings are rife, with toddlers disappearing from front gardens and schools. The urgency to have children in The Handmaid's Tale is more prominent as if the women fail to conceive, they are banished. Offred thinks, 'Give me children, or I die. There's more than one meaning to it.'

This desperation to have children is a key function for many of these women's identity. In many of these texts, their personal resolve in wanting children supersedes the needs of the human race. The welfare of these children or possible children is not considered either. This is demonstrated through the kidnapping and forced adoption of children. These children become status symbols representing success in reproductive function to shake the stigma of a failed 'barren' woman. This is compounded with the preservation of tradition, as seen in Children of Men. Not only are they acting out their mothering fantasies, but they are continuing in denial of the human race's impending extinction. It is no surprise that many women have often thought of bearing children as a key element to their identity. The notion of being 'barren' has such negative connotations that women have gone to extreme lengths to conceive.

Infertility is a real problem in modern society, with as many as 1 in 8 American couples experiencing it. The figures for the UK estimate it as high as 1 in 7 married couples unable to conceive. In 2006 in India, Bhateri Devi became one of the world's oldest mothers, having conceived through IVF at 66. Her overjoyed husband told the Daily Mail, 'she was my first wife, and after she failed to conceive a child, I married twice, but again I did not have any child from my other wives.' Her wish was to prove that she was not barren, although the blame appears to have immediately been placed upon her for not conceiving. Public outcry stated that these women should not have had children, despite being willing to sacrifice their own health to have these children. Infertility is clearly a serious issue. Depression symptoms that accompany infertility in women have been equated with those suffering from serious diseases such as cancer.

Without hope for the future, there can be no present. There is no purpose without life continuing after we are gone. Each of these texts shows the world crumbling without new life. It cannot be controlled by politics, religion, capitalism, or science, and there is often tension between these factions. The tension between these has been exploited, providing a bleak vision of the future in each of these texts. Whether we want to personally have children or not, the only way to rebuild society is to start over. Without children, this is not possible. Controlled, apathetic or fragmented communities cannot do this as everything becomes pointless. Without people to carry on our legacies, humankind will cease to exist.

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