Steriles

Introduction

   When the world population hit 10 billion people in 2063, the UN decided that the WHO's campaign to fund free contraception and terminations worldwide wasn't doing a good enough job. In the last few years, some organizations tried simply offering sterilization to people who didn't want children or had already had as many as they wanted. Some doctors tried to convince their patients to do it. But in 2063, China's spokesperson presented to the UN their new population control policy, with a projection of its use over the next 50 years. The US became the 12th country worldwide to implement the policy in 2067, despite riots from political groups all over the compass--former pro-lifers who had given up in the 30s, former pro-choicers who had no need to fight anymore (since abortion was unreversably legalized in all members of the UN in 2026), the entire libertarian party, gun ownership rights organizations, and pretty much anyone who favored any sort of freedom that the country was founded upon. In 2069, the policy was implemented worldwide.

   I was born in 2067, right after the law passed in the US. That day was the first of many where every hospital in the country was required to sterilize every other baby that was born, in chronological order. Twins were counted as one, so either both of them were sterilized or neither. Birth certificates now had four options: M, for unsterilized male, F, for unsterilized female, X, for unsterilized babies of indeterminate sex (ironically, it had just become illegal for doctors to perform surgeries on intersex babies without the signature of both parents, and medical staff was no longer allowed to advise surgery or hormone therapy unless the parents asked), and S for sterilized. Once our potential to have biological children was stripped from us, they no longer cared how we would have had them. My birth certificate was one of the very first to be marked with an S.

   There are some benefits to having my reproductive rights denied before I was old enough to know where babies came from (or even the word "babies"). I don't think I want children anyway, and it's certainly nice to be able to have as much sex as I want without having to worry about getting pregnant--obviously, I'm still careful about STIs, but once I've been dating someone for a while, it's a lot cheaper to forget about condoms, and I prefer my sex anxiety-free. But some part of me wonders if I only came to the decision that I didn't want kids anyway because I know I'll never be able to have them.

   Most of the time, Fertile people end up with each other. They might screw around with Steriles, and they have no reason to prefer Fertiles if they don't want kids anyway, but it's taboo for us to mingle as anything more than friends. Of course, a lot of Fertiles who have babies end up having Sterile children, so most families are mixed. But Steriles are frowned upon for dating Fertiles, just as reproductively incompatible Fertiles are told they shouldn't date--it's all seen as a waste of fertility. But something about them has always enticed me, and I seem to entice a lot of them, too.

   My girlfriend is a Fertile. Since she transitioned, though, she hasn't told anyone. If someone asks what genitals she has, she responds, "Why does it matter? I can't have kids anyway." They don't know that her reasoning is a monogamous relationship with a Sterile. It's almost shocking to me that she loves me enough that she'd rather be seen as a lower class of people than let society rip us apart.