Margaret Atwood, banking on the renewed popularity of her “Handmaid’s Tale” novel fueled by abortion activists, has written a sequel.
The Independent reports her new novel, “The Testaments,” is slated for publication in September 2019, more than 30 years after she wrote “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Popularized in a recent Hulu TV series, the novel takes place in a future totalitarian regime where the few fertile women left on the planet are forced to become slaves and bear children for the upper class.
Atwood, who supports abortion on demand, said her new work was inspired by “the world we’ve been living in” today. Never mind that no one is forcing women to get pregnant.
“Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book,” she said in a statement. “Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.”
The liberal site BuzzFeed News pointed to an earlier comment that Atwood made about President Donald Trump’s pro-life policies:
Atwood partly credited a recent spike in the book’s sales to the election of President Trump in 2016. Women across the world began dressing in the show’s red Handmaid costume as part of protests against the Trump administration — whose perceived anti-women agenda often drew comparisons to how women are subjugated in Gilead.
The handmaids’ red robes and white hoods have become a new symbol of the pro-abortion movement. Abortion activists wearing the creepy costumes have been seen everywhere from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court to state legislatures to pro-life events.
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As the popularity of the TV series grew, abortion activists began pushing claims that modern America is like Atwood’s novel. They argue that restricting abortion in any way equates to being “forced” into pregnancy, as the handmaids were.
Last year, Atwood herself claimed that pro-life laws are a “form of slavery.”
“That’s where the concern seems to cut off with these [pro-life] people. Once you take your first breath, [it’s] out the window with you,” Atwood said. “And, it is really a form of slavery to force women to have children that they cannot afford and then to say that they have to raise them.”
Pro-life laws do not restrict freedoms, they provide them by recognizing that both mother and child are valuable human beings. But to abortion activists like Atwood, apparently some human beings are more valuable than others.
