Handmaids or Test Tubes?

Fertility rates have been dropping, and in some countries, like the US, they have dropped below the level needed to replace the population. So the concern is if they keep dropping, then will we end up creating a society like in The Handmaid's Tale? It seems possible as this book is "at once a scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force" (taken from the summary on the back cover of my book). Would our society turn to the use of Handmaids if birth and fertility rates decline even further?

I think we would hope that we as a society have progressed enough to realize that we shouldn't treat women in this way, but have we? There is still fear that we haven't done enough to prevent this and that we would be easily overpowered and be forced to like in a society like the Republic of Gilead.
On the other hand, maybe we have and there would be enough push back to make sure we would find an alternate solution.

What would that solution be though? As much as Brave New World sounds like a terrible society, there are some elements that might be useful. The way they create humans in a kind of test-tube baby way and a conveyor belt that replaces gestation might be a solution for declining births and fertility rates. The other thing that BNW did is they figured out a way to get an egg to keep multiplying to create a bunch of twins. With this method you don't have to worry about if you will get pregnant or not because they fertilize the eggs outside of the body. You also don't have to care about will there be a miscarriage or a still birth or a birth defect because they have the system perfected. And with the egg dividing you can make multiple babies which would really help birth rates rise. Also, you wouldn't have to do the Ceremony once a month to potentially get pregnant. Clearly, Offred doesn't want to be a part of the Ceremony, she is more forced to (even though she said she made the choice to be a Handmaid). Also being pregnant kinda sucks so not having to do that is pretty fun.

The issue with this is that using BNW's baby-making method, it might lead society to become BNW. Then instead of living in dystopian The Handmaid's Tale, you live in dystopian Brave New World. What's better - the World State or the Republic of Gilead?

Soma.

Even in a seemingly perfect futuristic society like that of Brave New World, people feel sadness and despondency. It’s a human emotion that, no matter how far medical and technological advancements will get in the future, is bound to happen. So naturally, the government of this utopian realm tries to smother these emotions completely with their questionable new drug, Soma. “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant”… that's what Mustapha Mond calls this powerful new invention the government has created, clearly made in an effort to control the population. people take it for the high it gives them; the drink tranquilizes & diverts the individual's mind from the things they think and feel, but most importantly from realizing that there is something more sinister is going on with the government. 

The government uses this drug to trap individuals in their own happiness, an attempt to make themselves look as least suspicious as possible and conceal their hidden manipulation of the people. What they don’t want the people to realize is that they are a part of a twisted scheme with population control and a caste system determined by synthetic birth.

The great aftereffects of the drink are emphasized by Mond and others, clearly to encourage people to undergo a consequence-free high.

But why do they insist on pushing people to submit themselves to this distraction? What secrets are they trying to hide?