Permission From the Future

Science Fiction Fantasies and “Extrauterine Children” in Post-Dobbs Imaginaries

Abstract

In February 2024, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through the process of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) were definitionally children and entitled to the protections of the Wrongful Death Act. This article examines communication surrounding this case to consider the role of future-based permission structures in a post-Dobbs era. Understanding these speculative futures as permission structures allows us to understand how imagined futures that are taken as fact become the basis of these ethical and legal judgments, as well as how tropes of science fiction and speculative technologies can operate as unjust permission structures that impact present lives.