Make America Fertile Again
Coercion in Milkmaids' Clothing
Troubling doesn’t even begin to describe it. As you may have heard, White House officials are exploring policies to “persuade” more women to have babies—a natalist approach that raises profound questions about women's autonomy, governmental priorities, and the genuine needs of American families.
Oh the hypocrisy. Just this month, the health department made large cuts to the Division of Reproductive Health, which handled issues related to in vitro fertilization and maternal health outcomes. The cognitive dissonance is astounding: how can an administration simultaneously express concern about birth rates while reducing funding for the very department tasked with supporting reproductive health and maternal well-being?
Let’s look at some of the birth-boosting offers on the table:
A $5000 baby bonus. I probably spent that much on blueberries for my daughter last year.
A “National Medal of Motherhood” to mothers with six or more children. If you earn three, can you trade it in for one basic human right? Will it help her get the three jobs she’s going to need to support them? Ohhh—maybe it deflects the judgement she’ll get when they’re being kids in public! Or I know, you can melt it down to pay the $1,800,000 cost of raising six children to adulthood, right? That must be it. …Okay, I’ll stop now.
Reserving 30% of Fulbright scholarships for applicants who are married or have children. Hmm, I smell discrimination. If this administration only recognizes marriage between a man and a woman, then LGBTQ+ families wouldn’t be eligible for these prestigious awards. Guess this isn’t just about the babies, eh? It never is.
Educating women and girls on their menstrual cycles so they can better understand when they are ovulating and able to conceive. Nope, not sex ed to learn about birth control and healthy sexuality, but to teach them HOW TO GET PREGNANT (can you hear my primal scream?).
Photo by Marisa Howenstine on Unsplash
Let’s be very clear: women aren't having fewer children because they haven't been properly "persuaded." They're making rational decisions based on the social and economic realities of modern American life. In a country where the cost of raising a child to adulthood can exceed $300,000 (especially now when already expensive baby gear like cribs and carseats just had tariffs slapped on them), where quality childcare often costs more than college tuition, and where the United States remains the only developed nation without paid parental leave, is it any wonder that many women are choosing to have fewer children or none at all?
And yet, we know that lack of affordability, while a very real factor, isn’t the only reason women are having fewer children. Countries with much better social safety nets and birth outcomes also have declining birthrates. But if we look at what is happening in the United States, it’s obvious that Trump and his minions have no interest in meeting the needs of families. In classic patriarchal male fuckery, they are just dangling worthless carrots to get what they want.
If the administration took the radical action of listening to women, they’d know exactly what women need to feel more comfortable having children.
They’d hear them asking for safe and reasonable access to prenatal care, including if something goes wrong and they need an abortion. The maternal health crisis in America is so severe that even women who want babies are finding it increasingly difficult to find safe and accessible care. 30-40% of U.S. counties don't offer OB/GYN care. Obstetricians are deciding not to practice or are relocating from areas with strict abortion bans. Women's health is so undervalued that labor and delivery units can't stay open, creating maternity care deserts across the country. Women are twice as likely to die during pregnancy in states with abortion bans. Twice as likely.
If they listened to women, they’d hear them asking that their health—not just their baby’s—be taken seriously during the birth. The United States continues to have the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations—a crisis that disproportionately affects Black and Indigenous women. Now that women know more, birth has become scarier. Perhaps women are tired of dying and leaving their other children without a mother.
If they listened to women, they’d hear them requesting time postpartum to heal their bodies, manage their mental health, and bond with their babies. They’d hear the need for universal childcare that doesn't consume half a family's income. They’d hear the entreaties for paid sick leave so they can attend to themselves and their babies in an emergency. They’d hear women’s pleas for healthcare for every human being, regardless of job or marital status.
If they listened to women, they’d hear us begging for stricter gun laws—the number one(!) cause of death in children and teens and a uniquely American horror—and for climate action to ensure those babies inherit a livable planet.
If they listened to women, they’d know making care work aspirational for men rather than emasculating, would make a huge difference.
We need a country that is not pro-birth, but pro-life—in it’s true sense of the word, not the hijacked anti-choice version.
Why the focus on persuading women rather than transforming the systems that make parenthood so difficult, expensive, and isolating in America? If the administration were serious about supporting families and increasing birth rates as a secondary effect, they would prioritize building an infrastructure of care that would support all families, regardless of their composition or the choices they make about reproduction.
To be fair, no matter how much support we get, given a choice most women aren’t signing up for six+ children. But there are more ethical and sustainable ways to address demographic concerns besides manipulating women into believing their sole purpose is babies. Those, however, include many of the very things this administration is dismantling such as investing in education, welcoming immigrant families, and—brace yourself— pursuing gender equality. Yes, countries with more equitable divisions of labor at home and work tend to have higher birth rates.
The truth is, these pro-natalists (bro-natalists??) can't stand women’s progress. Progress has meant we no longer shut up and suffer silently. We demand change. We refuse to be used as demographic instruments whose reproductive decisions are managed for national/patriarchal interest. Their real agenda is to restore a narrow, heteronormative model of family—where men are in charge (of basically nothing?) and women know their place. That’s why they need abortion bans to trap women and why they’re disbanding maternal mortality committees to cover up the consequences of their policies.
It is institutionalized coercion dressed up like a butter-churn muse.
What's particularly galling about these dystopian policies and Trump’s fantasy of being “the fertilization president,” is linking them to more federal funding for infertility and reproductive health issues like endometriosis. That way they’ll have broader appeal and can be packaged in bipartisan wrapping paper. After generations of women’s pain being dismissed, their symptoms minimized, and research into their health underfunded, now—when men are worried about the economy and their existential power—they suddenly care?
Until women are treated as full human beings, don't be surprised when they continue making choices that safeguard their health, autonomy, and dignity. Always remember why they despise “woke.” It’s far easier to lead us into Gilead if we’re asleep.
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