Pronatalism: racism, sexism and bigotry all neatly tied up with a bow
At the core of pronatalism, many logical fallacies, and corruption
The face of the pronatalism movement is lovely. Happy, thriving families with lots of kids. Mothers breastfeeding, fathers playing with kids on the floor. Houses are immaculate and filled with toys, tasteful furniture, and eye-catching décor. Well-behaved children wear adorable togs with matching yellow boots. Women don outfits resembling the Commanders' wives in The Handmaid’s Tale. Oops! Did I step into dystopian dogshit! Nope. This is real dogshit. And this is our country, the United States of America, under GOP leadership, with Project 2025 as its blueprint.
The pronatalist movement is alive and gathering steam, thanks to Elon Musk and all his tech bros, the GOP, and the religious right. There is almost no distinction between this movement and similar programs that were promoted in Nazi Germany, and through the Mormon Church, Viktor Orban’s Hungary, the Catholic Church, and now through Evangelical Christians espousing a “Nationalist Pronatalism.” Countries such as France, Sweden, Iran, Italy, and South Korea are also working on growing their populations, but it is without coercive techniques, such as banning abortions and limiting access to or condemning birth control. Instead, they support those starting a family by providing basic services and resources needed to be successful in this endeavor, and that might otherwise be cost-prohibitive. The aforementioned religious and political institutions instead focus on pressuring women into having children and letting go of careers by walloping them with religious doctrine and/or by passing laws that restrict their access to reproductive health services.
Eye-catching pronatalism websites feature families of every color posing with what appear to be genetically perfect children. Most mothers appear to be homemakers, though in some pictures, the to-be moms are shown as working professionals. Alongside those pictures is the suggestion that the pronatalism group offers women a happy transition from professional lives to their natural role as baby-makers.
Pronatalism proponents are a growing faction in the pro-life movement and, thus, in the GOP generally. Although pronatalism imagery appears to promote all races, this movement is not a racially mixed bunch. The actual ethnic makeup of the Republican Party tells the real story — and that’s a tale of white people who only want to associate with other white people and of men who want to be the boss of everybody, as well as the deciders on all things related to women’s bodies. Under the guise of Christianity, they make their case, asserting they are simply following God’s laws.
And an aside about Simone and Malcolm Collins of Pronatalist.org as relates to their parenting and political aspirations. They are Republicans, consider themselves “Christian business executives,” are proponents of corporal punishment (Malcolm was documented smacking his 2-year old son in the middle of an interview with The Guardian - something he calls their “bopping system”) and Simone recently ran for state representative in Pennsylvania but was soundly defeated by Democratic opponent, Joe Webster. Just saying.
Below are charts from an intriguing NBC report in 2023 that help define the Republican party: “The GOP primary electorate tilts older, whiter and ‘very’ conservative...”
Quick summary: only about 20% of the GOP is of childbearing age, 89% of the GOP is white, and 67% of the GOP is conservative or very conservative. In short, we have older, white folks who no longer have skin in the game as relates to procreation, deciding policy on reproductive rights, access to birth control, the child tax credit, preschool and kindergarten programs, education generally, healthcare, and housing assistance.
Add to this the fact that ninety-seven percent of all Republican elected officials are white, and of those, 76% of them are men. Let that sink in — all who imagine this pronatalism thing to be anything other than a veiled attempt at expanding the white population and, thus, the GOP voter base and an attempt at keeping women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.
Oops… just saw a few hands go up! “What is pronatalism?” seems to be the question of the day. According to the Population Media Center: “Natalism (or pronatalism) is a political ideology which promotes the reproduction of human life or, perhaps more aptly, sees women’s primary role as giving birth to boost a country’s native population. Some people, predominantly men, want women to be baby-making machines.” Wikipedia says: “Natalism (also called pronatalism or the pro-birth position) is a policy paradigm or personal value that promotes the reproduction of human life as an important objective of humanity and therefore advocates high birthrate.”
So what exactly are folks (mostly white men) saying about pronatalism that has people flocking to join this movement? The Heritage Foundation says this: “We need a cultural revolution that promotes a sustainable and life-giving pronatalism that asks men and women, in the words of Dr. Catherine Pakaluk, ‘Why not have one more child?’“ “FYI, Dr. Pakaluk is an economist, mother of 8, stepmother of another six children, and a devout Catholic. Her book Hannah’s Children lays out her views on why it is not just ok, but preferable to have families with 14 children. As one can imagine, her reasoning is tailored to rationalize the choices she has made personally on family size. The book is not reflective, nor does it make her case, and she fails altogether to address essential issues of how imprudent procreation impacts the planet and its limited resources and how her concepts can be applied to those families without means or the benefit of a PhD from Harvard, as she has.
And nowhere does Dr. Pakaluk elaborate on a healthcare, education, and an employment system that can sustain these large families. These are huge issues in a world where one in 11 people is starving and over 11% of the United States population lives in poverty. In short, no infrastructure or environmental scenario exists that supports the type of growth she advocates. So much for that PhD in economics from Harvard.
For those still not connecting the dots, let’s be super clear: the pronatalist movement is 100% about the correlation between population and power. 100%. Exactly as it was in Nazi Germany and as it is currently in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Viktor Orban’s Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey and Donald Trump’s America. The pronatalist movement is even more importantly at the heart of Catholicism — this from its beginnings. With nearly 1 billion Catholics in a world of 7.8 billion humans, their influence on reproductive rights internationally is huge. Know that in the U.S., Catholics are now leaning more Republican than Democrat — 48% vs. 47% according to the Pew Research Center.
Why should we care about this fringe movement that is threatening to overtake longstanding national and international policy on family planning, social programs, reproductive rights, child welfare, housing, healthcare and more? Because of this — the pronatalist movement is evil intentions disguised as virtuous. Yes, “evil” is a strong word, but it most certainly applies to programs designed to manipulate everyday people and their good intentions for the sake of:
• political power • economic power • personal wealth • repressing non-white, non-binary, non-Christian people • abandoning people experiencing poverty, and physical and mental health issues • ignoring people experiencing abuse, and discrimination • exploiting natural resources and damaging the earth
These people are not unlike the beloved priest in vestment who gives a rousing sermon on Sundays, but thinks nothing of raping children. These are people without empathy. They look the part, they say the right words. But things are not as they appear.
Who are these people, what have they done, and what are they doing as we speak? Sadly, this is the Republican Party — both the Republicans who conceptualize and advance the Project 2025 agenda, and those who lack the backbone to oppose it.
The GOP, despite its mantra about Christian family values, is not pro-families. Not by any means. It does not support universal preschool and healthcare. It does not support parental leave, nor does it support programs for childcare. It has opposed an extension of the child tax credit, and favors reduced access to basic reproductive services and contraception. It has shown no mercy for the children of immigrants and children born into poverty, and has worked vigorously to reduce SNAP benefits. In red states, the GOP has massively loosened child labor laws, exposing children to physically dangerous work in construction and food processing, and allowing them to work long hours, which thwarts their progress in school. They have also eliminated the oversight intended to protect children from exploitation in the workplace.
The GOP has also turned a blind eye to human trafficking and the rampant sexual abuse of minors in major religious organizations such as the Catholic Church, Mormon Church and Southern Baptist Convention. And let us not forget the party’s staunch support of gun rights and their complete disregard (minus “thoughts and prayers”) for the 41,000 people who die annually in the U.S. from gun violence. Then there is all that vaccine misinformation perpetuated by the GOP that has led to significant declines in vaccinations for children, unnecessarily exposing them to life-threatening diseases.
Does any of this sound pro-family? Hell no! And none of this has anything to do with the so-called liberal media. GOP positions on family and children are a matter of public record — they are stated repeatedly by the party, on the floor of the House and Senate, on television broadcasts, and on social media. The GOP has become the cheerleader for evil, all the while dressed in the sheep’s clothing of evangelical Christianity.
Here’s a sprinkling of Republicans in Trump’s orbit and where their views intersect with the pronatalist movement:
• JD Vance has expressed the belief that people with children should have more votes and has aligned himself with a president who describes immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our country.” Vance has praised Viktor Orban in his raising the birth rate in Hungary and asked “Why can’t we do that here?” It can safely be said that Vance is among the pronatalists.
• Mike Johnson opposes abortion and access to common forms of birth control
• Elon Musk’s views on pronatalism are widely known; he posits that population decline in the U.S. is more concerning than global warming
• Marco Rubio has an extensive record of opposing abortion, supporting the restriction of sexual and reproductive health and he’s Catholic
• Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former running mate Nicole Shanahan gave copious amounts of money toward reproductive “resilience” programs
• Matt Gaetz had a long record of anti-abortion extremism, and has even come out against some types of contraception
• Donald Trump: “We want more babies”
• Other close-to-Trump political figures who back the basic tenents of the prenatalist movement include Mehmet Oz, Pam Bondi, Marty Makary, and Russell Vought, architect of Project 2025
Note: only one woman in this group.
The intersection of nationalism, motherhood and patriarchy espoused by the GOP now has much backing in Silicon Valley, land of the tech bros, and they’ve taken pronatalism to heart, moving it even further into the future with support for new fertility technologies. These technologies are designed to support procreation of superior individuals through embryonic optimization, enhanced child selection through AI, overcoming infertility, reversing reproductive aging and by creating artificial wombs so as to avoid the need for human procreation altogether. Investing heavily into this technology are Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Brian Armstrong, Jack Abraham, Nicole Shanahan and Vitalik Buterin. Silicon Valley elites are looking to control both the process and the outcome of childbearing not only for their personal benefit, but to monetize hugely technologies they know most people will want to access.
Note: only one woman in this group.
If economics were truly the only point of contention to be considered in all of this, the ethics of pronatalism would be a non-issue, as choosing to have a large or small family or none at all would be the choice of the individual or couple.
But this is not what is happening. Instead, while complaining about population decline out of one side of their mouth, the GOP is bragging about deporting 8.3 million people out of the other side of their mouth. The vast majority of those they are looking to deport are non-whites. If the economy is such an important issue, why would they do this?
Deporting 8.3 million people will also hugely impact the country’s workforce and the jobs they leave will not be readily filled — the pay is abysmal, as are the working conditions. And this same group of people represent 8.3 million consumers — people who buy things and pay taxes that, for the most part, support people other than themselves.
Fewer workers, fewer consumers, fewer taxpayers. Economy tanks. This sounds like a clusterfuck, though an easily solved one: simply don’t deport these people. With an solution that obvious, yet ignored, the question then becomes… what is the real reason the GOP insists on doing something they know will hurt the economy? That’s a no brainer. To MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN. This is ethnic cleansing. Plain and simple.
Immigrants gone… now there’s that nasty declining population thing, which is worse than ever. Here’s where the pronatalists ride in on their white horses to save the day. They’ll replenish the population! With smiles on their all-white faces.
The other factor in this scenario of growing big families to replenish the native born is that the GOP has trashed or is in the process of trashing nearly every government program and agency that supports children and families. Every. Single. One. And to what end?
We are headed into a period where having children will be a luxury only the wealthy can enjoy. People like Malcolm and Simone Collins, people like their rich tech bros, people like the politicians in D.C. who rake in money from every special interest group.
That will leave all the childless cat ladies to pick vegetables and tend to the children of rich business titans. Exactly as depicted in the Handmaid’s Tale. Can hardly wait for this day to arrive. We’re almost there. Yee hah!
I’m really hoping Margaret Atwood is in her writing burrow working on a sequel that will lead us out of this nightmare. Holy toots.
Right on. Excellent peace. Fascism and pronatalism have always gone hand in hand.
Chris Andrews: Very, very good on all counts.
What is more endearing than Mother Nature's creation of a loving Mom, her newborn, and her children.
There is nothing that compares to that image and reality of beauty.
How insidious of Nazis to use these images to perversely condition a vulnerable, poor, unemployed, bankrupt populace to follow the way of the "Movement" (die Bewegung) to ultimate genocide, mass murder of innocents, including these mothers and their little children.
This is a topic, the Nazi propaganda and ideology alone, that could occupy hours in the genius of propaganda and beautiful images to pervert a wholesome, industrious population into an infrastructure of the sickest mass murder.
This is a topic for hours, even a semester, or even a graduate degree, even a doctorate.
You accomplish a lot in a brief column, and your selection of pictures is excellent.
You are a very accomplished writer. Hats off!