Pronatalism in the US: The Trump administration's push for more births

The Trump administration is embracing increasingly worrying measures to try to increase the US birth rate. The growth of far-right pronatalism presents a major threat to reproductive health and rights. Population Connection is monitoring new developments and documenting them here.

Why the widespread “baby bust” handwringing?

Pronatalism (the ideology that there should be more births) is prevalent across the Global North, with governments from all over the political spectrum fearing the potential socioeconomic impacts of below-replacement fertility rates (fewer than two births per woman). This is because reduced population growth can lead to slower economic growth, and a higher proportion of elderly dependents reliant on taxpayer money.

Progressive governments usually try to increase births with policies that support parents and prospective parents (such as subsidized childcare and paid parental leave – these are undoubtedly beneficial but largely ineffective at boosting births), while authoritarian regimes often resort to reproductive rights restrictions.

Right-wing governments and figures with nationalistic tendencies (including Trump) also want to increase birth rates to maintain a strong military and to counter ethnic, racial, and cultural diversification from immigration. These types of leaders often embrace the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory which states that white people are being “replaced” with foreign non-white populations that have higher birth rates. As well as opposing immigration, these governments are hostile to reproductive health and rights, especially abortion care.

“We want more babies” – Pronatalism in the Trump administration

Probably the most influential pronatalist in the Trump administration is the richest man on Earth and father-of-13 Elon Musk, who bought his new position as Trump’s right-hand man with a $288 million campaign donation. Musk has been trying to sow panic over declining birth rates for years, claiming that the human population is on the verge of collapse due to people having small families, and that low birth rates present a “much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.”

Already on the campaign trail, Trump declared “I want a baby boom,” adding, “You men are so lucky out there.”

Since Trump’s inauguration, his administration has made more strange to downright creepy statements related to wanting to increase the US birth rate. Here’s a list in reverse chronological order:

February 2025:

• Trump issued an executive order about expanding access to in vitro fertilization (IVF). The move is largely seen as symbolic, as it just calls for policy recommendations “to protect IVF access and aggressively reduce out-of-pocket and health plan costs for such treatments.” It quotes Trump, who admits this support for IVF is “because we want more babies, to put it very nicely.” Clearly, this conflicts with his anti-abortion stance, once again making it blatantly obvious that his attacks on reproductive rights are about controlling women’s bodies, rather than genuine concern for the earliest stages of human life. [Read more about the hypocrisy of IVF support from “pro-lifers” here].

January 2025:

• In his first speech as Vice President, at the “March for Life” in Washington, DC, JD Vance admitted that he opposes abortion because he wants “more babies in the United States of America.”
• Shortly after Sean Duffy was confirmed as Transportation Secretary, he circulated a bizarre order instructing his department to “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average” when awarding grants.

The wider US pronatalist movement

Outside of the US government, the movement of people thinking we urgently need more babies seems to be gaining traction too. Right-wing think-tanks, for example, have been issuing “baby bust” warnings for years. The Heritage Foundation (the Trump-allied group behind far-right playbook Project 2025) recently published a plan to increase the US birth rate which involves defunding higher education, because the number of children a woman has in her lifetime is inversely correlated with the number of years she spends in education. In other words, they believe in withholding educational and career opportunities from women to force them to return to traditional domestic roles.

Then there are media magnets Simone and Malcolm Collins, a Pennsylvania-based couple who espouse a bizarre interpretation of utilitarianism which concludes that when it comes to numbers of people, more is always better. The Collinses founded their own organization, the “Pronatalist Foundation,” aimed at raising concern over “demographic collapse” driven by low birth rates. Their four children (and counting) were all conceived via IVF and genetic screening methods. The couple has been profiled in countless media outlets due to their kooky views and controversial parenting style.

The Collinses were among the speakers of the first-ever “Natal Conference” in Austin, Texas, in 2023 (organized by outspoken eugenicist Kevin Dolan), alongside a weird collection of far-right influencers and conspiracy theorists. “NatalCon” is set to return in 2025.