Dear Margaret, it's me, Sara

Dear Margaret,

It's me, Sara.

Like many others, I'm a fan.  Loved Alias Grace, The Robber Bride.  Enjoyed your poetry.  Above all, though, I love The Handmaid's Tale. 

I remember the first time I read The Handmaid's Tale.  I was so affected by the book - the characters, yes, but even more so the ideas, the possibilities, how a society can go so very, very wrong.  I'm certain that I have never looked at butter the same way.  Since then, I would guess that I have read it at least five more times and it undoubtedly was influential on my chosen and beloved career path - fertility law.  

As you are no doubt aware, your book is (dis)credited as the basis upon which the Baird Report and the subsequent Asssisted Human Reproduction Act were written.  It is therefore in your name that, in ostensibly trying to protect women from being exploited for their reproductive capabilities as were the women in Gilead, the Assisted Human Reproduction Act prohibits paying a surrogate for her services, an egg donor for donating her eggs, or a person for arranging the services of a surrogate mother,  whatever that means (including, ideally, a person with specialized training in the relationships between gestational carriers and intended parents).

Now, when I read The Handmaid's Tale, I don't see it as a call for the state to protect women from being exploited; rather, I see it as a message about the potential dangers inherent when a state imposes its ethical and moral views on its people in the name of protecting them - which, in my opinion, is exactly what the Assisted Human Reproduction Act has done. 

So, dear Ms. Atwood, you are so involved with local and national politics and are undoubtedly one of the most influential Canadians of our time - could you please lend your voice to this issue, too? Women are capable of and should be entitled to make decisions about their bodies, including being paid to donate their ova to others who need them to build their family, or being paid to act as a gestational carrier to people who cannot build their family without their help.  If women obtain medical advice, independent legal advice and psychological counselling and choose to engage in surrogacy or egg donation, why should the state protect them from themselves when they do not need or want protecting?