Bloodchild, Today

In my first read-through of Octavia Butler's Bloodchild, I was horrified. Initially, my reaction was just to the graphic descriptions of alien maggots and humans' bodily harm, but it quickly turned into horror at the societal systems that Butler illustrates. The main character, Gan, is chosen before his birth by an alien, T'Gatoi, who helps raise him for the sole purpose of laying eggs in him — eggs that will eventually tear him apart in the process of "birthing." She seeks to keep the truth of the birthing process from him, and manipulates him by threatening his family when he expresses doubt about being a vessel for her maggots.

Upon further reflection, I realized that this story reminds me disturbingly much of the current regulations on women's bodily autonomy. My horror at the physical suffering that Bram Lomas and so many other humans have to endure under Tlic rule effectively turned into sadness and disappointment at how easily I could project our reproductive healthcare system into this story. And, though Bloodchild offers an extreme and warped example, the core principles remain the same. Only 16 out of 50 U.S. states have explicitly pro-choice policies or legislature after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And, although Gan is unsettled by the act of being implanted more than the issue of actually carrying T'Gatoi's offspring, the underlying ideas are the same. In a system where he is not in power, Gan is forced to carry children that he doesn't want to.

The way in which the Tlic are born from humans, which I don't want to discuss in too much detail, is a process that is extremely painful for the human companions of the story. Gan's brother, Qui, once witnessed a birth where the maggots ate their host alive, as a Tlic watched without helping. And though humans aren't typically killed while birthing the offspring, it is a distinct possibility. Essentially, the maggots that they are carrying pose a real danger to their lives. In our world, there are some cases where carrying a child poses a real threat, but this can be ignored by the powers that be in favor of forcing someone to carry to term, in states with strictly pro-life legislature. The policymakers, like the Tlic, value the lives of the unborn as greater than the lives of the humans carrying them.

As we discussed in class, Octavia Butler saw Bloodchild as a love story between Gan and T'Gatoi. (I found this article explaining her feelings on the subject more in depth. Although it's a more complicated story of her opinion, it doesn't change the fact that she sees it as a romance.) However, our class pretty much agreed that it chronicled an abusive relationship, rather than a loving one. Knowing that Butler published this story in 1984 helps to explain her different feelings on the subject, because so much more was deemed acceptable at that time than we are comfortable with now. Although Roe v. Wade established a ban on restrictive abortion laws in 1973, there was a long way to go in the fight for bodily autonomy and women's rights when this was written. Domestic violence was only recognized as a federal crime in 1994, ten years after Butler's story was published. It's evident that attitudes around consent, love, and abuse were different at the time she wrote Bloodchild. However, as a reader in the 21st century, this story disturbed me in more ways than one.