North America’s Obsession with Babies and The Handmaid’s Tale

Hollywood is awash in babies, from the recently birthed (Helena Bonham Carter and Nicole Ritchie) to many, many others. Adoption advocates Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie may be in that precious way again, if industry wide commentary on Angelina’s multi-coloured “sack” gown and the possibility of twins is any indication. One guaranteed high profile pregnancy is highlighted by the “delighted” Gwen Stefani family, as they rejoice over the anticipated arrival of their second child sometime later this year. Added to the swelling joy is music celeb Dixie Chick Martie Maguire, who notes that’s she’s “very excited” . Not to be forgotten, Fred Savage and his wife, Jennifer Stone, are pregnant again, and want everybody to know it! Lesser known celebs, like Mary Lynn Rajskub, are expecting. Even younger Hollyrude celebrities like courageous Jamie Lynne Spears are baking up offspring. Last, but not least, celebrity Arkansas breeding couple Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar spewed forth their 17th child in August, and immediately noted their eager anticipation in conceiving number 18. The positive outlook on pregnancy is mirrored with recent Hollywood films such as Knocked Up, Waitress, Bella, and Juno.The joyous list goes on. However, in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and elsewhere in present day society, there are scores of women who are desperately busy trying to conceive in order to lay claim to biological (or surrogate) motherhood. In Gilead, women are so hungry for babies that the heroine, Offred, describes scenes in which women size up each other’s bellies, noting that jealousy can often get pregnant women killed. Offred’s very survival depends on whether or not she can breed successfully. Acceptable children in pre-Gilead America are so scarce that Offred recalls a memory of someone stealing her young daughter from her grocery cart. The eager anticipation of a household pregnancy is so powerful that Offred’s master’s Wife encourages her to illegally sleep with a man (Nick) other than the polygamous Commander. The anxiety Offred and the other breeders (handmaids) suffer as they wait to successfully conceive is a mere echo of women across the industrialized world today who can’t breed without assistance, but who are, nonetheless, determined (at any cost) to do so. The temptation of a baby, as Elizabeth Ruth notes, is akin to a candy dangling in front of women’s noses. She deals with the trauma of callous fertility clinic physicians who coldly treat her like a number. From costly fertility drugs (second mortgage, anyone?), to winging it, she and her partner try everything until they finally conceive and carry beyond the first trimester. Ruth’s negative experiences are highlighted by the exploitation of other couples in pursuing pregnancy. Dr. Charles Rodeck, head of fetal medicine at London University College Hospital, notes that for clinics, it is not so much about patient care as it is competition for clients, and the resulting lack of information they receive. Women such as Ruth and IVF patients are willing to spend diaper bags full of money on any treatment they are lead to believe is effective. Regardless of whether a woman is pregnant, trying, or not even remotely considering the possibility, the temptation is everywhere in today’s American baby boom propaganda. Likewise, in pregnant women show off, and those waiting for the same glory get the privilege of riding in the birth mobile to witness the wondrous birthing event of a fellow handmaiden . In present day America, even the mere thought of the “love of ruffles and lace” is enough to send Michelle Duggar into an orgasm about conceiving yet again.

For Duggar and Hollywood women, there is a consumer plus to expecting—they can shop until their waters break. Newsday recently reported that J. Lo, you’re average mother-to-be, is buying little things like sleigh cribs and silk sheet sets. If women think shopping is exciting pre-pregnancy, imagine searching for the perfect personalized embroidered crib sets! The glamorous task of buying Baby everything He or She needs (or Them, if you’re even more blessed) is furthered by such acts as Elizabeth Hasselbeck giving all members of The View’s audience their very own “Celebrity Bump Bag,” (which is valued at $1,500+ and contains brand named Baby lines). Glam consumption starts with Baby! The current cultural trend, if Hollyrude is any example, according to Virginia Rutter, is that making reproductive choices appears to be quite effortless. The only real worry is deciding over which designer diaper bag to buy.

It isn’t just Celeb moms and moms-to-be that are creating a rose-colored pregnancy lens through which the rest of us salivate on. “Babies” is one of People Magazine’s Top Ten news categories. We, the consumers, are lapping up the rabbit Hollywood baby bump.

While the far Christian right currently relies on such seemingly innocent Hollywood movies and celebrities to place an ultra-distorted view of pregnancy and all of its realities, it has a much darker ace up its sleeve. The lack of education and access to contraceptives and other methods indicates that America is headed down the path to excessive breeding. Approximately 750,000 American teens will conceive in 2008. Goodman has stated that abstinence only education, to the tune of $1 billion, just doesn’t work. Lack of education coupled with skewed information is a disastrous combination. Some women blame abortion for drug problems and most other women’s psychological issues, and Christians like Rhonda Arias encourage carrying through with unplanned pregnancies instead of considering the alternatives. Compared to Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan, the US has the highest fertility rate .

Following right along in the view that abortion is responsible for an assortment of women’s ills, men who want more control over the female body, have chimed in with a new attack. Men like Jason Baier adds his two cents by claiming that men suffer from a variety of gripping psychological problems and addictions that stem directly from the act of abortion. Though there is no valid research proving that men are severely traumatized by abortion, these men continue on in the movement to dissuade women from having that choice. Contrary to these male assertions, Post-Abortion Syndrome is not a recognized disorder, nor does male sadness and regret concerning abortion translate into life-paralyzing devastation. Whether women choose to abort or keep the unborn is often influenced by accessibility to different services, not male paralysis. Ann Friedman notes that abortion providers have been dropping in numbers for the past 2 decades, and while it has leveled off somewhat, numbers are still declining. Although some doctors provide medical abortions, these numbers are small.

With all signs pointing towards more pregnancies in America, the next logical step is what Atwood portrays in Gilead. Offred, against her will, gets to ride in the “red” car once a month to visit a nameless doctor for her reproductive examination. The physician never sees her face, for she is just a human broodmare, the lower parts of her body being the only essential elements of her existence. Her teacher, Aunt Lydia, argues that once the breeding numbers are up where the white men in power want them to be, things will be better for women. This assertion certainly has no influence on America today, because, as already mentioned, America has the highest fertility rate in the industrialized world and yet the Brownbacks in power are still crying out for more babies through the ceaseless lament for the lost Unborn.

In the meantime, Offred is washed and groomed by her womenfolk, as if she is a “prize pig.” She is treated minimally better than the other women because of her breeding potential. Danita J. Dodson compares her to the colonized African-American slave woman—once she is incapable of producing offspring, she will be disposed of, or sent to the colonies as free labour until her body wears out. Bringing the comparison up to date, the woman that comes to mind is Michelle Duggar, who doesn’t get time off from breeding; she is enslaved to the far right’s belief that good Christian women must breed as much as possible to create warriors in the fight against evil (any one who isn’t an upper class white male Christian). Unlike Offred, though, Dugger and other aging women out there will find use in assisting their children in raising grandchildren; somebody has to do the thankless job.

If Hollywood and current politics are any indication, the anti-abortion camp is currently in the lead. And we would do well to heed the lessons of Atwood’s heroine, Offred, who Neuman (2006) shows us willingly chooses to ignore the warning signs pre-Gilead that women were about to lose the war. Our passiveness when it comes to the glorification of pregnancy in wealthy Hollyrude and ignoring the warning bells set off by women like Dugger can only lead to further promotion and acceptance of the Gilead expectation of self-managed victimization through the glorified hollow broodmare status.