Something hooked me in it that I don’t quite remember, I think it struck me as subtly pro-life, or something.
I agree it was pro-life, and probably couldn't be made today. One of the themes is that people chose surrogates that were more more beautiful, or different than themselves. People projected an image of themselves completely different from who they really were. People interacted with the idealized projected image of each other, not the real person. And the real people stayed home, afraid to interact with anyone, hating themselves for not being the ideal they wanted to project. The chief "villan" thought that was evil.