{"id":1052,"date":"2025-03-30T18:41:56","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T18:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/they-want-more-babies-now-they-have-friends-in-the-trump-white-house\/"},"modified":"2025-03-30T18:41:56","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T18:41:56","slug":"they-want-more-babies-now-they-have-friends-in-the-trump-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/they-want-more-babies-now-they-have-friends-in-the-trump-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"They Want More Babies. Now They Have Friends in the Trump White House."},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The American conservative movement has long worked to put the nuclear family at the center of cultural and economic life. Lately, it has added a twist. It wants to make those families bigger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As fertility rates have declined, a \u201cpronatalist\u201d cluster on the right wing has been making the argument that public policy should encourage more childbearing. With President Trump\u2019s return to office, this group appears to have gotten closer to the center of power than ever before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Broadly speaking, they want measures like more support for families with several children; speedier and cheaper options for higher education that would allow Americans to start procreating earlier; help for those having trouble conceiving; and initiatives that elevate childbearing to a national service.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Steps like the move by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a father of nine, to direct federal funds toward places with high marriage rates and birthrates are exactly what many have in mind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Movement on their priorities, however, has been slow. And in some cases, pronatalists have found the White House\u2019s actions counterproductive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cSo much has happened, and so much has been such a mixed bag,\u201d said Patrick Brown, a fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center who is focused on family policy. \u201cThat\u2019s going to be the tension, that angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. At this stage, the devil seems to be winning out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The first two months have been crowded with efforts to fulfill Mr. Trump\u2019s campaign promises: mass deportations, steep tariffs, retribution against his perceived enemies, sharp funding cuts and an aggressive deconstruction of the administrative state.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There hasn\u2019t been much time left for family policy. Pronatalists cut the administration a lot of slack, hoping that their time will come, too. But they also have a messaging challenge: The movement does not speak with one voice, and even the term \u201cnatalism\u201d means different things to different people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Vice President JD Vance has long criticized the childless and explicitly endorsed \u201cmore babies in the United States of America,\u201d as he put it at this year\u2019s Right to Life March. The billionaire Elon Musk, a top Trump lieutenant, has fathered at least 12 children with at least three partners as part of his belief that depopulation is the biggest threat to human civilization; he <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/search?q=from%3Aelonmusk%20population&amp;src=typed_query\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">posts frequently<\/a> about \u201cpopulation collapse\u201d on his social media platform X.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Although they might sound aligned, Mr. Vance and Mr. Musk represent two distinct and sometimes conflicting factions within the movement.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-5219787a\">A Philosophical Divide<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Vance\u2019s camp, motivated by religious values and present in several socially conservative Beltway think tanks, focuses strongly on the family unit as the essential building block of society. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have families, those are the bedrock of our entire civilization, we don\u2019t have a real country anymore,\u201d Mr. Vance said in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This group also cares not just about the number of children, but also <em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">how<\/em> families are created. Some pronatalists have celebrated Mr. Trump\u2019s actions to stamp out transgender identity, saying that enforcing traditional gender norms is important to family formation. Many are skeptical of in vitro fertilization as a way to help infertile or same-sex couples, for example, or single women who want to raise a child on their own.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt should not be babies at all costs, because babies aren\u2019t to be treated as commodities,\u201d said Roger Severino, the vice president for domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, who adds that Mr. Musk should not be held up as a familial role model. \u201cSome on the pronatalist side lean in that direction, which loses the necessary context for human flourishing, which is that stable family unit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Vance camp also opposes abortion, but tends not to mix that subject with the birthrate conversation except to say that with all the new restrictions on reproductive choice, it would make sense to do more for young mothers financially.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The other camp is more aligned with the viewpoint Mr. Musk has articulated. Rather than religious belief, they are motivated by a fear that humanity will not replace itself, strangling economic dynamism as a dwindling work force strains to support the growing elderly population. They dismiss immigration as a remedy, arguing that it can weaken the culture of the receiving country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This group, which embraces assisted reproduction, is most visibly identified with Malcolm and Simone Collins, a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/style\/of-interest\/2025\/02\/01\/malcolm-and-simone-collins-pronatalism\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">media<\/a>&#8211;<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2024\/nov\/03\/simone-collins-pronatalist-pennsylvania-candidate\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">friendly<\/a> <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/lifeandstyle\/article\/2024\/may\/25\/american-pronatalists-malcolm-and-simone-collins\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">couple<\/a> with four children born through I.V.F. They favor using genetic selection to pick embryos with desirable characteristics, an approach that Christian groups <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heritage.org\/marriage-and-family\/commentary\/the-pronatalism-silicon-valley\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">typically oppose<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe\u2019ve done our best to try to be inclusive with people who like to play ball,\u201d Mr. Collins said. He said he and his wife had stood down as organizers of a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.natalism.org\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">conference<\/a> this month so those with a traditional religious perspective would feel comfortable attending. \u201cWe specifically \u2014 despite generally being known as like, leading the pronatalist movement \u2014 didn\u2019t want to be the ones running the conference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Collinses said they recently composed a suite of suggested executive orders and sent them to allies in the White House. They include deregulating child care businesses to bring down the cost, and loosening car seat laws, which can now require buying larger vehicles to accommodate more than two children. Another would create an award for women who have six or more children, versions of which exist in a handful of countries, including France.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Vance and Mr. Musk did not respond to requests to discuss their positions, but the White House says it\u2019s interested in such policies. Asked whether Mr. Trump cares about raising fertility and what he is doing to support families, a White House spokesman, Harrison Fields, said the administration was \u201cempowering Americans to have and raise the families of their dreams \u2014 helping couples struggling with infertility, strengthening family budgets by tackling inflation and creating jobs, and enabling parents to raise and educate their children free from the corrosive ideologies and lifestyle preferences of the left.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But no overarching advocacy group unites the two branches of the pronatalist movement. They have no common platform, scorecard to grade to politicians on their voting records, or political action committee to hold the White House accountable for its promises.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-7420575a\">What Could Raise Birthrates?<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Pronatalists agree on many ideas, such as tweaking tax policies and safety net programs to equalize benefits for married couples and single people. They also support removing barriers to home construction, although they differ on whether it\u2019s important that new housing come in the form of single-family places in the suburbs. They are pushing to make the child tax credit more generous, and favor a \u201cbaby bonus\u201d for new parents to help with infant care needs. (Child care subsidies are less popular, as they are not seen as benefiting stay-at-home parents.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Leah Libresco Sargeant is laser-focused on getting more money to families. She\u2019s a senior policy analyst at the Niskanen Center, a think tank that describes itself as supporting free markets and effective government, and has been working on the tax bill being hashed out in Congress. Republicans should at least increase the child tax credit enough to make up for recent inflation to prove their pro-family bona fides, she said \u2014 and increasingly, according to polling and surveys, it\u2019s what conservative voters want.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI think it\u2019s going to be hard to make the case for a real, lasting realignment if families don\u2019t see evidence of that next April,\u201d Ms. Sargeant said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In designing policy requests for federal legislators, however, pronatalists run into a problem: There\u2019s little evidence that subsidies and protections have substantially raised the number of children women have over their lifetime. It\u2019s not for lack of trying by low-fertility countries including Norway, Japan and South Korea. The few nations that have arrested their declines, like Hungary and the Czech Republic, adopted more sustained and generous incentives than appear politically viable in the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Democrats support many of these policies as well \u2014 for the purpose of improving living standards for parents and children, not encouraging more reproduction. But families have been <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/cosm.aei.org\/the-blue-state-family-exodus-families-are-migrating-to-red-and-purple-states\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">leaving<\/a> blue states with generous policies, not moving to them. And when the left-leaning groups try collaborating with conservative groups on family policy, efforts tend to fall apart around familiar ideological fractures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of agreement in theory on the concept that families need more support,\u201d said Vicki Shabo, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation who has advocated paid leave and child care assistance for years. \u201cBut what that support looks like, what the role of the government is, and whether public funds get invested always seem to be a point of disagreement.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That\u2019s why, for the purpose of adding babies, there\u2019s an emerging understanding that cultural factors are crucial. The most fertile country in the developed world is Israel, at 2.9 children per woman, with its hard-to-replicate combination of intense nationalism and widespread religiosity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">An agenda that prioritizes large families makes plenty of people queasy. Groups like Population Connection worry that the tactics required to raise birthrates can verge on authoritarianism, and believe that the consequences of population loss aren\u2019t as catastrophic as pronatalists make them out to be. And increasing numbers of young people do not want to burden the planet by having children of their own.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Nevertheless, pronatalists want the administration to establish a commission to elevate and study the subject, as well as to infuse their priorities across the federal government. The Biden administration screened many policies and grant applications for their impact on climate change and racial equity, they point out; the same could be done for procreation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI think the administration, without even going to Congress, should put the government in the position of saying \u2018OK, family formation is a priority, how is our action affecting that?\u2019\u201d said Tim Carney, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute whose latest <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aei.org\/research-products\/book\/family-unfriendly\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">book<\/a> is about how America makes it difficult to have children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Such a commission \u2014 or even a czar, as some favor \u2014 might also coordinate more efforts like the Transportation Department funding memo. Pronatalists were pleasantly surprised by the provision, but say they have not heard of similar measures at other agencies yet.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-3b8af6a9\">Unintended Consequences<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">At the same time, the implications of Mr. Trump\u2019s broader agenda are not uniformly positive for larger families, or the incentive to build them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some pronatalists argue that the Department of Government Efficiency\u2019s broad cuts are diminishing resources that could instead be diverted toward their priorities. The Education Department, for example, could encourage instruction about declining birthrates and how childbearing gets more difficult with age. The Department of Health and Human Services could support more research on reproductive health problems, and redirect some funding under Title X, the federal family planning program, from contraception toward fertility services. All of that requires staff support.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Another way in which Mr. Musk may be making it more difficult to raise children is return-to-office mandates for federal employees, ending an era of workplace flexibility that helped parents with desk jobs juggle work and children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cCertainly telework is pronatal,\u201d<strong class=\"css-8qgvsz ebyp5n10\"> <\/strong>said Daniel Hess, a father of six who writes about fertility on X under the handle @morebirths. \u201cI do think that the left has a lot of important things to say that the right is a little bit blind about, and work from home is a great example.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While some pronatalists celebrate Mr. Trump\u2019s crackdown on immigration as a step toward safer communities, lower housing costs and potentially higher paying jobs for Americans, economic evidence suggests those are unlikely outcomes. Moreover, slowing the flow of immigration may depress birthrates because foreign-born residents both tend to have more children (at least for now, as birthrates fall in Latin America). And immigrants often help American citizen parents take care of their children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe people being deported are disproportionately likely to be low-cost child care workers, low-cost yard service providers, low-cost providers of things families buy,\u201d said Lyman Stone, a demographer who directs the Pronatalism Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies. \u201cOn the whole, if we were to deport three million people, that would not boost fertility, possibly reduce it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But the biggest factor may be economic instability and rising prices. Mr. Trump\u2019s on-again, off-again tariff policies have roiled markets and battered consumer confidence, which historically has not been a climate conducive to starting families.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Catherine Pakaluk differs from most pronatalists in that she doesn\u2019t believe that the government should be trying to raise the birthrate. The director of the political economy program at Catholic University, a mother of eight and the author of a book about women who have large families, she believes family size is a personal choice. But if the government decides that higher fertility is in the national interest, she also thinks policies that increase costs won\u2019t help.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe tariff policy at the moment is the most significant economic item on the agenda, and I\u2019m definitely concerned that it\u2019s not going to be broadly pro-family in terms of keeping the cost of everything people need to provision their families affordable and in supply,\u201d Dr. Pakaluk said. \u201cThere\u2019s your intentions and there\u2019s your outcomes, and they\u2019re not necessarily the same.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The American conservative movement has long worked to put the nuclear family at the center of cultural and economic life. Lately, it has added a twist. It wants to make those families bigger. As fertility rates have declined, a \u201cpronatalist\u201d cluster on the right wing has been making the argument that public policy should encourage [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[727,728,730,158,729],"class_list":["post-1052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-babies","tag-friends","tag-house","tag-trump","tag-white"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.insuracarelife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}