THE IDEA BEHIND ONE
As with my first two novels, Off Target and The Waiting Rooms, it was real life issues that prompted the premise for ONE.
And then came the ‘what-if?’ that set me running with characters and plot.
I was interested in two ideas: given recent intrusions by governments upon women’s rights, how might a one-child policy play out in Britain? What if birth was a crime?
And with daily reminders of the havoc we are inflicting on our planet, how might the climate crisis change Britain and other countries around the world: not only in terms of environmental impacts, but also social and political ramifications? How we are governed, how we treat people?
These two ideas came together in ONE.
State control of women’s bodies is nothing new: it has dogged us throughout history.
The number may have changed from one to three, but China still has a law dictating how many children its civilians are allowed to have. But playing God with populations can have unintended consequences. China is now so concerned about its falling birth rate which hit a record low in 2022, that it is actively incentivising families to have more children, not less, to ward off a feared future labour shortage and sustain the costs of the country’s ageing population.
China is not the only country worried about the social and economic impacts of declining fertility. President Putin recently unearthed Stalin’s ‘Mother Heroine’ award: a significant payment to encourage mothers to have ten children, such is his concern about Russia’s falling birth rate.
At the other end of the scale is India, who will overtake China in 2023 to become the world’s most populous country. Two-child policies already operate in several states. Some include fines and even jail time for transgressing fathers, as well as the removal of health benefits for mothers and the denial of state rights for ‘excess’ children.
A worrying echo of China’s one-child policy.
It is not just Asia where women’s reproductive rights are being challenged.
A different kind of government intervention took place last year in the United States, with the overturn of the landmark abortion legislation Roe vs Wade. State legislators can now decide whether or not a woman is legally entitled to seek an abortion for an unwanted or high risk pregnancy.
Whilst nearly 50 countries over the past few decades have liberalised their abortion laws, as I write this, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, no less than 65 countries either prohibit abortion completely or only permit it where there is a threat to the mother’s life.
In an era where we have made progress with many human rights, it seems reproductive rights are still very much under attack.
“This brilliant book, One, immerses us in a dystopian future where a green-tech paradise conceals a family-planning hell. As an illegal excess child who survived China’s One Child Policy, this gripping and unsettling tale brought back all my worst memories from that time and reminded me of how easily the abhorrent practice of forced birth control could come back in a not-too-distant future...”
—Shen Yang, author of ‘More Than One Child: Memoirs of an Illegal Daughter’
ONE explores another subject close to my heart: climate change.
I used to work for an environmental organisation on climate change projects, and ONE imagines two very different scenarios of what might happen over the coming decades unless we make significant changes now.
On the one hand, we see a Britain lucky enough through geography to be much less impacted by adverse changes in climate, and also fortunate to possess the wealth, technology and expertise to adapt.
Contrast that with those nations disproportionately affected by climate change who are the least responsible for generating the carbon emissions that have caused it. Many of these countries do not have the resources themselves to adapt: their populations face the loss of their homes, their livelihoods and their security.
The Ministry in ONE uses this polarisation to justify its laws, emphasising the relative stability and security enjoyed by UK citizens in stark contrast to the devastation being suffered overseas.
The Ministry news reels show a constant stream of natural disasters and extreme weather events affecting and displacing millions of people around the world whilst at the same time incarcerating climate migrants in vast ‘resettlement’ centres and denying all but a very few legal entry to the UK.
This is not a world any of us want to see.
But are we able and willing to make the changes necessary to prevent it?
“Reproductive rights are integral to women’s rights, a fact that is upheld by international agreements and reflected in law in different parts of the world. To be able to exercise their human rights and make essential decisions, women need to be able to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to information, education, and services.”
— UN Women Statement on Reproductive Rights