Utopian Visions of “Making People”: Science Fiction and Debates on Cloning, Ectogenesis, Genetic Engineering, and Genetic Discrimination

Abstract

In his treatise on science fiction (sf), Darko Suvin claims utopian fiction as the “socio-political subgenre of science fiction,” suggesting that such texts should be approached both as literature and as social scientific experiments.¹ Applying to them the label “social-science-fiction,” Suvin treats the “what if ” thought experimentation involved in the creation of fictional utopian worlds as being innately political.² For Suvin, the study of utopian fiction must begin with an exploration of collective psychology and end with a discussion of the “politics of the human species,” exploring such politico-eschatological questions as to how the human species can “survive and humanize its segment of the universe.”³ While this is a useful starting point, this essay will adopt the revised definition of Suvin’s “utopian fiction” put forward by such scholars as Lyman Tower Sargent, which encompasses both fictional eutopias (ideal worlds) and dystopias (bad worlds).⁴ For Sargent, utopian sf is a form of “social dreaming” in which authors create alternate worlds in order to explore the social and political lives of their inhabitants.⁵ Eutopias represent pleasant dreams—dystopias, nightmares.