#natalism

The White House’s Plan For Reversing The Declining Birth Rate

Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day:

We have to talk about this absolutely batshit New York Times piece—the headline alone turned my stomach: “White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Women to Have More Children.” “Persuade” is a polite way to put it, given that forced birth is the law of the land in half the country! But this isn’t just about abortion bans: Since Trump took office, the country has been handed over to a newly emboldened bro-natalist cabal—men like Elon Musk and JD Vance, desperate to increase the birthrate, whether women like it or not. Here are just a few of the ideas the Times reports are being tossed around at the White House:

A “National Medal of Motherhood” to women with six or more children;

Reserving 30% of government fellowships for those who are married with children;

State-funded education programs teaching women and girls about their menstrual cycle, “so they can better understand when they are ovulating and able to conceive”;

$5,000 cash as a ‘baby bonus’.

First of all, it’s telling that this administration will do anything other than what families really need. If the Trump administration was actually interested in supporting parents, they’d be pushing for paid parental leave, subsidized childcare, and an end to laws that make it deadly for people to give birth. But Republicans don’t care about making the world better, safer, or healthier for American families and children—they just want women to have more babies. What happens after that? They couldn’t care less. Actually, scratch that—because the administration’s “baby boom” push isn’t just about boosting the birthrate. It’s about reasserting a rigid, traditional vision of American family life: one where parents are straight, women are submissive, and the bro-natalists in charge get to pretend it’s all for the good of the nation. As Times reporter Caroline Kitchener points out, the White House has an ideologically-specific definition of ‘family’: Straight married couples with children. Consider what that means for some of the administration’s proposals: If 30% of fellowships (like the Fulbright) are reserved for married parents—and the administration only recognizes straight marriages—they’d be creating a deliberately discriminatory quota, excluding LGBTQ people from prestigious awards and funding. Imagine how many other government marriage promotion programs they could use to leave certain families behind.

The Trump Regime is proposing natalist ideas, such as creating a National Medal of Motherhood to women with six or more children, $5,000 baby bonus, and a quota of 30% of government fellowships set aside for married parents with children. The catch is: only straight married couples with children are eligible.

A lot of these ideas that they are pushing come from Nazi Germany, Stalin-era Russia, and Ceaușescu’s Romania.

See Also:

People: Trump's Team Ponders How to Make Women Have More Babies. One Idea Was Part of Hitler and Stalin's Playbook

Mother Jones: Trump May Soon Offer a Motherhood Medal, an Idea Popularized in Nazi Germany

If you call HUMAN fetuses "parasites" you're a fucking monster! Fuck you!

even on the most positive upper bound, i do not see how it frames/presents baseline or objective neutrality if the most affirmative case is rendering the same decisive outcome. it is potentially very effective birth control, though whether it is responsible or irresponsible for the machine to be in favor of highly conditioned / not absolutist but essentially absolutist antinatalist behavior is, questionable,

Women??? Did you say women? As in adult females? “Women”, starting at age fif-fucking-teen years old?? 😳🫣Did you mean legitimate and still very much developing teenage girls?? Do they actually hear themselves? What the whole entire fuck, bruh. ☹️ A fifteen year old girl is not a grown ass woman, shitheads. Why are yall pushing relying so heavily on underdeveloped girls getting knocked up being a reasonable resolution for the nation’s population declining? Fucking weird af in the first place.

Says a lot about how they looked at previous generations of women who had children so young too (like they were just a means to fulfill a particularly dehumanizing economic goal no matter the expense, basically). They might as well be passively encouraging pedos to prey on these young girls as soon as possible w rhetoric like this. Natalists are so fucking weird, man (esp the more financially well off they are, it seems like). It’s like they’re kinda saying they’ll turn a blind eye to how vulnerable that makes female minors if it means they get babies (workers inevitably) through consensual or non consensual means. Would that not lead to or back just as unavoidable gender crimes?

Like holy fuck I can’t imagine being a parent these days. Can’t stand how female minors are objectified like this. Blatant pedophilia’s just gotten incredibly okay to condone within the past 10 years in the west and booooy is it starting to open my eyes as to how intricately interwoven it is w natalism in general.

Having children to comfort monsters who prey on them anyhow under the guise of it being better for the human species at large? 😨 you actual fucking morons.

Originally posted to r/natalism:

There are many posts here about how women's internet access/access to social media is one of the main things driving declining birthrates even in developing countries. I do believe this is true, however there seems to be confusion from men on exactly *what* online content is pushing women away from having children/partnering up with men (bc declining birth rates are directly correlated with declining marriage rates). Hint: it's not feminist content.

Most young women have grown up with complete unfiltered access to men's opinions on us. Most men who claim to be "pro-natalist" or "pro-family" online also openly use this to justify for female subjugation (or outright rape), this isn't a misrepresentation, this is a reality, I've personally witnessed this even on this sub. I don't think men realize that associating pregnancy (a natural biological process that is apolitical) with "traditional" right-wing patriarchal values is exactly the reason why women are rejecting it. A lot of young women I know personally do like children but don't want to have any because the risks are just so abundant. They fear losing their freedom or sense of identity, finding out a male partner holds misogynistic views, is abusive, cheats, etc, and not being able to leave, becoming a single mom, your husband no longer finding you attractive after you "hit the wall" or give birth, having a daughter just for her to be victimized by men later on, these are real fears women have, and rightly so, they've been taught BY men to not trust men.

Any woman who is young enough to have grown up with the internet has undoubtedly been exposed to a TON of violently misogynistic rhetoric from men online, viewpoints they wouldn't necessarily have been privy to in earlier generations. In 2025 the topic of family formation is unfortunately mostly presented online in the form of birth rate/great replacement hysteria from redpill/incel types. Women ARE seeing this content even if they don't engage with it, we also have the experiences and advice of older women in our families who went down the "traditional" route and were punished immensely for it. These things are constantly shaping our views on men whether you think this as unreasonable/unfair or not. I found the above post on tumblr with hundreds of likes from young women. Women have access to male spaces, we are witnessing firsthand men's opinions on women and motherhood, and we don't like what we see, it really is that simple. Women don't feel safe to form partnerships/have children with men because of the way men present themselves.