Sure, it sounds absurd — until you remember that we live in a culture in which a Texas judge recently referred to pregnant women as “hosts”, abortion is still a criminal offence in Queensland and New South Wales, and the Australian Christian Lobby is fighting to reinstate the global gag rule which denies women from Pacific Island nations rights to reproductive health services and abortion access.

The Handmaid’s Tale takes the culture’s motherhood fetish to its chilling endpoint and reminds us that we need to fight for autonomy over our lives and bodies at every turn.

• I wrote about the evergreen relevance of The Handmaid’s Tale for Daily Life.