In the future, birth rates will drop so dangerously low that fertile women who have committed perceived crimes, such as getting an abortion, will be forced to become surrogates for certain families. At least, that’s what author Margaret Atwood depicts in her esteemed 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale. You may have heard this title crop up more often recently, and that’s not without reason. The contents of this cautionary tale and the current condition of the United States of America have some shocking similarities that have sparked fear in the hearts of many people, specifically women.
The story of The Handmaid’s Tale follows Offred, a Handmaid living in the Republic of Gilead, the theocratic and totalitarian nation that replaced the United States of America. More specifically, Offred lives in what appears to have been Cambridge, Massachusetts: the home of the Puritans and, in the novel, the center of Gilead.
A Handmaid is a woman who has committed some type of crime (adultery, being openly gay, marrying divorced men, or having abortions, to name a few) and is fertile. These women, due to the declining birth rates, have been assigned as surrogates for infertile families.
Handmaids can no longer be known by their own name, which is a crucial part of identity. Their name includes the name of their Commander or the man in charge of impregnating them. In the narrator’s case, her name becomes ‘Offred’ for ‘of Fred.’ They are seen as objects rather than people. Individuality and sense of self are discouraged and inevitably deteriorate.
When Handmaids cannot bear children, they are sent to the Colonies. There, they endure working conditions so harsh that it is expected that they will die. In this society, Handmaids–who are really just ordinary women–are better dead than infertile.
Reading The Handmaid’s Tale, with what has currently been happening in the United States, felt eerily familiar. The laws of Gilead are strikingly similar to the decisions made by leaders in the United States, though these laws are not (yet) as severe.
In the novel, abortion is a crime so severe that the repercussions will land you a position as a Handmaid. It doesn’t matter the reason for the abortion: anybody who gets an abortion becomes a Handmaid, and doctors who perform such procedures, before or after they became illegal, are executed in Salvagings (mass executions) and hung on the Harvard Wall.
Roe v. Wade was a 1973 landmark decision where the Supreme Court stated that the Constitution protected the right to get an abortion. In June 2022, the Court overturned this decision. The legality of abortion is now up to specific states. Abortion is now illegal in 12 states, including Idaho, South Dakota, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. These conservative laws prohibit all abortions, even in emergency cases that threaten the life of the mother or fetus. Some laws only prohibit abortion through certain methods or purposes, or if parental consent is given. As of now, New Jersey allows all abortions. However, things may be subject to change in the near future. On the evening of President Trump’s inauguration, the website offering reproductive health information launched by the Biden administration was taken down. With a president not in favor of abortions, things might change soon.
The Republic of Gilead is almost completely cut off from foreign intervention. They do not participate in any international organizations, and media corporations and news outlets have been entirely dismantled. Because of this censorship, Gilead citizens get very little information, and what they do get is almost always false.
Donald Trump has withdrawn from global agreements and has been quick to make choices that make American citizens fear for the stability of our country’s alliances. These actions resemble the goals of Project 2025, a plan many have accused Trump of being involved in. A CNN report discovered that more than 100 people who have worked in his administration were involved in its drafting. TIME Magazine found that two-thirds of Trump’s actions from his very first week in office relate to proposals of the 900-page Project 2025. Trump has already withdrawn the nation from The World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement. In Project 2025, international organizations are called something the United States “should not blindly support.”
People have labeled Atwood’s famous novel an extreme representation of what Project 2025 would look like fully put into action. The document mentions the hope of “maintain[ing] a biblically based, social science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.”
The Handmaid’s Tale has already been banned from many schools in Florida, Texas, and Oregon. One of these reasons is because this novel discusses feminism. Feminism is the concept of both women and men being socially equal. Many people fear that beloved dystopian literature that warns people about certain aspects of the government will be wholly banned. People are running to buy novels like Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, or The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood.
The story of The Handmaid’s Tale follows ordinary women who are forced to have children based on their government’s view of right and wrong. In comparison, women who are forced to give birth due to restricted access to abortions are in extremely similar positions under the current administration. Subsequently, in both cases, women have less ability to control and make decisions about their own bodies. Even though The Handmaid’s Tale is fictional and is considered an extreme dystopia, the novel is a cautionary tale. Only time will tell how extreme this novel is in comparison to the United States government today.
