Reproduction in Science Fiction

The three native sentient species of Traipah are all hermaphrodites, and most reproductive capabilities are controlled by the will; they can decide whether or not to release sperm during sex, can decide whether or not to introduce the sperm to eggs, can decide whether or not to let a fertilized egg implant, and can even change their mind within the first week of pregnancy.
Also, though they prefer sexual reproduction with others, to keep up genetic diversity, they can impregnate themselves and make clone babies that way. Just slide out the grahbihn (analogous to a penis) and turn it back in, directing it into the vagina. In fact, in the Yahgahn religion, the creator of the universe gave birth to Life and Time by impregnating Hirself while masturbating.

In my Mindeodean series, there's one species of humans who reproduce entirely by artificial wombs, and they've lost the ability to do it any other way.

Right now, we live in a world that ignores the importance, expense, and labor of child-rearing. The more we neglect these issues, the more likely it is that our children won't mature into the kinds of autonomous adults who can prevent the equally horrific futures of The Handmaid's Tale and "The Pre-Persons."

and that, right there, is why we live in the world we do. Because the ruling elite don't want a population of autonomous adults, capable of thinking for themselves and resisting authority's demands on them. They want and need a world where the proles just shut up and sit down when told to... a world of compliant workers whom they can leech off.

Working on cyberpunk now. The main female characters have been given hysterectomies--without their consent, one at age 15--so that their bodies will never impede the pleasures of men. Neither of them are happy about this.

On the other hand, the outside world is polluted and toxic to the point that most women simply can't have children, and the ones that are born don't live long. People die around age 60.

The corporations play hard on this, promoting their arcologies, with clean air, clean water and real food, where happy families of parents, infants and grandparents all play under artifical suns in parks with real grass and trees. Although once you move in, you never leave. On your death, your body goes to the recycling vats and is broken into component elements and used to make things for the rest of the arcology.

Here's where I admit that I lost interest in the article -- which was interesting -- at the sentence, "In the James Tiptree, Jr. story 'Houston, Houston, Do You Read?', author Alice Sheldon imagines what would happen if some astronauts were knocked off course, Planet of the Apes style, and found themselves orbiting an Earth of the future."

No. In the short story, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?', author James Tiptree, Jr. imagines what would happen, etc.

Dammit, I remember having that argument with my brother 40 YEARS ago. If someone uses a pseudonym or public name, the courteous thing to do is refer to him or her by that name.

I think it is not quite right to characterize the argument about abortion as being really about raising children.

It is *also* about raising children, but it is mostly about punishing people who have sex while female with forced parasitization--or about enslaving us to have unwanted babies. This seems to be in order to force us back into being sexual gatekeepers--which is also (and probably not coincidentally) a way of making us subordinates in society, less likely to get a good education or a good well respected well paying job.