A Modern Handmaid's Tale: Duping a woman to have your baby

Jane

In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood introduces us to a future world in which fertility rates are low and the babies are often defective ("unbabies") due to environmental decay. To increase the population, the government assigns fertile women ("handmaids") to wealthy couples. The handmaids are forced to have sex with husbands ("Commanders"). The resulting children are given to the "Commander's Wives."

The Handmaid's Tale was written in 1985; if it had been written a decade later, it might have dispensed with the sex part of reproduction, and told a story like that unfolding in Texas where Cindy Close claims she was duped into producing twins for Marvin McMurrey and his partner, Phong Nguyen.

'I'm Having Their Baby' turns into 'I'm keeping MY baby'

Lorraine

I'm Having Their Baby is yet example of how a thriving business (adoption) can spawn one television show after another, especially when around every corner is someone searching for their 15 minutes of fame, even if 13 of them are spent in tears.

The Oxygen channel (started by Oprah, now owned by NBC Universal) features this latest weep-fest for the weary, and lord knows, I am tired of stupid television shows that appear to glorify or encourage adoption. I say "appear" to because I am not sure that this one does because the mothers-to-be spend a lot of time with the blues: Claudia hates her baby daddy--he has six other kids by four women, and he cavalierly indicates he might fight her for custody, which you know at the time he says it that he is just being a shit for the camera and his ex, who is only weeks away from giving birth.