Giving birth to a child is one of the most basic elements of life, which is why so many great science fiction stories revolve around the same terrifying question: What if childbirth were no longer an option?
Some sci-fi imagines a world where humankind mysteriously loses the ability to procreate, like in Children of Men or The Handmaid’s Tale, where our species’ abrupt biological dead end leads to the collapse of civilization and the rise of fascism. Other genre classics, like Brave New World or The Giver, imagine more advanced societies where birth is no longer a natural process but a bureaucratic and scientific one, emphasizing the ways that technological progress strips us of our humanity.
