Children of Men

I'm not real into sci-fi, but I came across a film tonight--Children of Men--that I had seen ten years ago when it opened. The film is well done, the premise thought provoking, and the themes of faith, hope, and redemption, while not overt, seemed to stretch beyond the immediate setting and were apparent enough for anyone looking for meaning in the work.

Set in London in 2027, a world-wide infertility epidemic has prevented any new births from occurring for 18 years as humankind faces extinction. Refugees stream into Britain (the last stable government), which is in a police state, and pro-immigrant underground resistance movements work to advance their agenda. In the midst of all this, the protagonist, Theo, a jaded civil servant, is kidnapped by the resistance and forced to protect a young refugee named Kee, who is pregnant (the only woman in the world with child). The future of the human race depends on her giving birth, and Theo is sworn to protect her so that she is not co opted by the government and stripped of her baby for political purposes.

It is a neat modern-day spin on the nativity narrative in Matthew and Luke's gospels: A young refugee finds herself miraculously with child; her husband is sworn to protect her and her baby from government co-option. They travel in secret. Wise men come from afar  to behold the sight. The child born will be a savior to the world, to redeem mankind from death and destruction, all of which was foretold by the prophets.

We seem to almost be living in a science fiction novel today. 59 million lives have been lost to abortion since Roe vs Wade in 1973, and 1.5 billion worldwide since 1980. We manufacture human life in test tubes and freeze or destroy embryos, bank sperm, take a morning after pill to terminate a pregnancy after contraception fails. Governments enact policies to limit children to 1 per household and force sterilization and abortions when citizens don't comply, while black market surrogacy is thriving. Human life is commodified and exploited by merciless systems of production, and traditional nuclear families are in the minority. Meanwhile, Europe faces a population disaster due to plummeting birth rates, the economic implications of which are starting to be realized.

In short, we have taken human life for granted, and there will be a price to be paid.

A quote from the film that stayed with me was when Kee's midwife reflects on the beginning of the infertility crisis in 2009, when people stopped getting pregnant and giving birth. "As the sound of the playgrounds faded," she said, "the despair set in. Very odd what happens in a world without children's voices."

2027 is only a decade away. Let's pray such a world does not come to pass.