Scholars have considered how "The Farm" approaches reproduction sociologically. Ingvil Hellstrand argues that the episode "raises issues of reproduction as a gendered imperative, where fertile women have a moral obligation or duty to reproduce." In this context, she identifies Starbuck with the desire for individual agency and Simon with "state-regulated biopolitics". In this regard, Starbuck is "both anti-natalist and techno-critical". The conflict between freedom and control is not presented in the series as strictly between human and Cylon; Roslin outlaws abortion in the human fleet twelve episodes later, in "The Captain's Hand". Lorna Jowett argues that the Farm exists within a context of "masculinized science" in which a man (Simon) controls reproduction and the women are viewed as baby-making machines. Susan A. George argues that the Cylons are seeking to absorb the captive human women into a kind of biological machine.