A 2023 Pew Research poll shows that 47% of adults under the age of 50 are unlikely to have children, a 6% increase from 2021. However, studies suggest that the desire to have children hasn’t actually changed. In fact, 9 in 10 Americans have children or would like to, and yet, despite this desire, the US population continues to plummet.
Credit: The Experiences of U.S. Adults Who Don’t Have Children, Pew Research Center, Washington, D.C. (July 25, 2024)
What Has Turned Women Away From Having Children?
Buzzfeed surveyed women after the 2024 election and asked them to share their outlook on having children. Many said they had now chosen never to have kids or, if they already had children, not to have any more. Their reasons ranged from fear that pregnancy complications in combination with their states’ abortion laws could lead to serious harm or death to themselves and/or their child, to simply not being able to afford childcare.
Many are now mourning the children and the family life that they will never have. This “ambiguous loss” is most often tied to women facing infertility, but now, childless women are also experiencing this grief, partially due to the rise of pro-natalism.
Pro-natalism is a pro-birth ideology that sees high birth rates as ideal. Malcolm and Simone Collins are the founders of a pro-birth organization counseling the Trump administration on how to encourage people to have more babies. Like other pro-natalists, the Collinses see the declining US birth rate as a crisis, offering solutions such as fertility classes to teach women when they are most fertile, baby money bonuses up to $5,000 USD for each baby a woman has, and additional money bonuses for women who have over six children.
A Token Offering, Not Genuine Support
While this may seem like a great incentive, children are lifelong responsibilities, and a one-time bonus can never be enough to offset that fact. Pro-natalist solutions rarely involve aid for childcare, education, job training, or other policies that truly support women or help them grow as individuals. They encourage systems that see women as baby machines rather than people with their own lives and goals, as in Japan’s former health minister calling women “birth-giving machines” or Iran’s 2015 birth drive pushing women into motherhood.
Many aspects of maternity disregard one of the most important components: the women. Maternity leave focuses more on the health of the child rather than the mother. Additionally, with the overturning of Roe v Wade, many women, especially Black women, worry about what would happen to them if pregnancy complications were to arise.
This fear is not unfounded, as can be seen in the story of Adriana Smith. Adriana was pronounced brain-dead earlier this year, but was kept on life support to be used as a human incubator despite her family’s wishes to lay her to rest. Yet, Georgia’s heartbeat law forbade doctors from fulfilling those wishes as long as the fetus had a heartbeat.
Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe) and her lawyer Gloria Allred on steps of Supreme Court, 1989
Credit: Lorie Shaull, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr
Disregard Women and the Birth Rates Will Never Recover
Pro-natalism turns motherhood into a mechanical process, a duty women must participate in even if she dies in the process. This ideology, plus the over-medicalization of maternity, strips medical freedoms and objectifies both women and maternity. It’s no wonder women are abandoning the idea of building a family. If society won’t aid and protect them before, during, or after pregnancy, why should they risk it at all? It’s our job to change our perception of maternity and motherhood by putting women first and prioritizing them every step of the way.
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