The novel I read, the Handmaid's Tale, dealt with a dwindling birthrate and a practically enslaved female population whose purpose was to combat this crisis. I focused my paper on human rights. Here's an excerpt.

How do we determine human rights? Is there a difference between human and animal rights? Common sense says yes. Humans are capable of reason. Humans are capable of making a difference, either for better or worse. Thus, humans deserve more freedom and more opportunities to choose their own paths than animals. Humans are more useful, thus more valuable, than animals, and should be given more privileges accordingly.

This is a dangerous path to be following, assigning rights based on utility. What if there are different degrees of usefulness among humans? The easiest division among us is gender. Are men somehow more worthy of freedom than women? Where does the value of women come from? Is their only purpose to carry and care for children, or do they have other functions as well? For example, women tend to be great communicators. When they are forbidden to speak, what loss does the society sustain? And should our significance be based only in utilitarian terms? Or can we be valued simply as the treasured creation of God? Or even the desire of man?

It’s impossible to gauge our freedoms unless we know what scale we’re using. Something that sounds repressive to us may only seem so by comparison. Conversely, just because no infringement on human rights is perceived does not mean a system is just.