Home / 2 B R 0 2 B :science fiction short story
2 B R 0 2 B' is a short story by renowned science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut. The title is pronounced as "2 B R naught 2 B"; a reference to the famous phrase "to be; or not to be" from William Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. In this story; the title refers to the telephone number one dials to schedule an assisted suicide with the Federal Bureau of Termination. The setting is a society in which aging has been cured; individuals have indefinite lifespans, and population control is used to limit the population of the United States to forty million. This is maintained through a combination of infanticide and government-assisted suicide. In short; in order for someone to be born; someone must first volunteer to die. As a result, births are few and far between, and deaths occur primarily by accident.