Infertility in Star Trek

Abstract

It is fair to say that Star Trek comprises a selfcontained subgenre within science fiction (SF). Over nearly 50 years, through six distinct television series, and eleven feature length films, the “Star Trek universe” envisioned by Gene Roddenberry has become arguably the world’s most elaborate and widely recognized depiction of life in future times (covering roughly the twenty-second through the twenty-ninth centuries). In this article, situations involving infertility occurring in episodes from different Star Trek series are examined and some general conclusions offered concerning the perception of this problem and the variety of responses proposed.