Each good novel has a vision of its world that informs what is put in and what is left out. - Marge Piercy

"Some people go on wanting [sex] as long as they live, but other people, they let it go as if it were a garment that had worn out." (Malkah, nine: REVISING THE FAMILY ALBUM)

No one before the twenty-first century had ever loved flowers and fruiting trees and little birds and the simple beauty of green leaves as did those who lived after the Famine, for whom they were precious and rare and always endangered. (four: THROUGH THE BURNING LABYRINTH)

Science fiction, speculative fiction, whatever you want to call it, is one of the ways to explore social issues in fiction. You can explore what it's going to be like if current trends continue. You can change a variable and see what that does.