Birth Rate Hysteria Scapegoats Women for Social System Failures
Society exists to support human life, human life does not exist to subsidize failed systems
Republican proposals to increase the birth rate all amount to offering women expired coupons to sacrifice their lives and wellbeing to produce more workers to fuel the billionaire class and shore up systems that have already failed us.
Within their conservative patriarchal framework, WOMEN are the social resource that supports society, not social participants worthy of receiving collective consideration and investment.
This worldview dehumanizes women into a means of production that perform all labor, knowledge, and care necessary to produce and sustain life OUTSIDE of any social structures of mutual aid and support.
It also dehumanizes children into a pre-able bodied worker class, not a rising future entitled by birthright to unconditional care and investment from their communities and the nation at large.
Instead of addressing the real and knowable systemic failures that have made it unfeasible for many Americans to create stable families, conservatives promote hysterical narratives that blame women’s humanity and independence for the fall of civilization itself.
YouTube version of this article if you prefer to watch! Dives a bit deeper and broader and we dunk on Elon Musk for using his child as human shield to guard against assassination threats
We’re going to break down the silly birth rate proposals the Trump braintrust is cooking up - as articulated by in this recent New York Times article by Caroline Kitchener. But first, let’s provide some missing context for this conversation.
Economic Context Driving Falling Birth Rates
Let’s speak to the unspoken economic context around declining birth rates in America. This clip of Speaker Mike Johnson illustrates the true economic motives underpinning the “pro-life” agenda that has criminalized women’s bodies in the wake of overturning Roe vs Wade.
Roe vs Wade gave constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children in America. Period. If you think of the implications of that on the economy, we’re all struggling here to cover the bases of social security, medicare and medicaid, and all the rest. If we had all of those abled bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this. Listen - I will not yield, I will not - Roe was a terrible corruption of America’s constitutional jurisprudence.
You hear that ladies? When women enjoy human rights and autonomy, we destroy economies and Grandma can’t receive the social security she paid into all of her life because we are not generating enough abled bodied workers for the state and corporate class to consume!
The part these “pro-life” freaks omit from their fantasy valorization of 1950s housewifery is corporate tax rates and federal social investments.
In 1950 America, the effective corporate income tax rate was 50%, while it’s fallen to a pitiful state of 13% now.
Corporate tax rates are confusing! I’m relying on Robert Reich’s, former US Secretary of Labor, analysis of effective corporate tax income
Effective tax means the average rate at which its pre-tax profits are taxed, while the statutory tax rate is the legal percentage established by law
Statutory tax rates are pretty meaningless data points because they don’t account for all of the loopholes, write offs, and industry-specific subsidies that substantially lower the actual taxes collected from corporations and the economic elite
The American tax system is designed to subsidize business profits and protect the consolidation of intergenerational wealth by gutting public investments in social services and overburdening working class Americans.
In 1950, the top marginal tax income tax rate for the wealthiest Americans was about 90%, while it now stands at 37%.
Once again, elite economic profiteers are not even paying the statutory 37% through write offs and other vehicles for shielding wealth from contributing to the welfare of the society that enriches them.
To put this in perspective, Elon Musk’s Tesla paid zero federal taxes in 2024 - a streak for them! Over the course of 3 years, Tesla made $11 billion in US income and yet paid NO FEDERAL TAXES.
In comparison, Tesla has agreed to pay about US$323 million in annual taxes to China, in addition to committing to $2 billion (US) in capital expenditure to secure approval to build their newest Chinese plant.
Tesla is paying for the privilege of producing and performing in China, while being SUBSIDIZED by American workers and American taxpayers. Americans are literally subsidizing the world’s richest man while he wanders through OUR federal infrastructure with his DOGE teens to kneecap social security and steal citizens’ data.
This is important context for the reality of birth rate hysteria - it’s about feeding more workers into dysfunctional social systems that are cratering under the weight of their own extraction.
You only need an ever increasing population if you are mortgaging future generations to avoid making the necessary investments in life sustaining structures NOW.
When people fear-monger that declining birth rates are causing the fall of civilization to SCAPEGOAT and GUILT women, ask the fall of WHAT civilization?
The civilization that consumes life as a resource and spits back bones? Let it fall. Let’s build a new one where society’s primary mandate is to facilitate humans cooperatively meeting needs in the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
You only need an ever increasing population if you are mortgaging future generations to avoid making the necessary investments in life sustaining structures NOW.
Alright, enough preamble - let’s get into the white house proposals!
Trump Brain Trust Proposals
Let’s see what these very stable geniuses have in mind to promote American baby making!
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH THAT’S THE TOP 3!!!!!
Yes, targeting Fulbright scholars - of which, there are about 2,800 or so Americans, mostly in their early-mid 20s - will absolutely boost that birth rate. No notes over here.
The $5,000 baby bonus nonsense is absolutely laughable. That wouldn’t even cover the cost of a hospital birth WITH INSURANCE as this couple, The Quist Family, explains:
THE TOTAL COST FOR 3 DAYS OF HOSPITAL CARE WAS $37,019 — THEY HAD INSURANCE AND STILL HAD TO PAY $11,558.93 OUT OF POCKET COST!!!!!!
The most expensive line item? The epidural! Over $14,000 to receive pain management support for the most physically painful experience a human can experience. What an upsell!
How insane is it that these staggering amounts were just for the hospital birth! These figures do not include any related costs like prenatal care, time off from working, car seats, paying for lactating consultants to help with breastfeeding issues, etc.
The most astounding revelation was that hospital charged the baby separately from the parents. Sure, the parents and baby all shared the SAME hospital room, but they were charged SEPARATELY for the space!
I could understand separate charges for care the baby received, but double ticketing the room and board is gnarly and cruel.
America is so pro-life that all our babies are born in debt. How Christian!
I thank the Quist family for sharing this vital information - thank you! I’m glad they had a safe and healthy delivery process and I wish nothing but the best for this family.
Singapore’s Comprehensive Family Support Packages
Let’s compare this $5,000 baby bonus to what some other countries offer. Let’s keep in mind that every other industrialized nation offers some form of universal or single payer healthcare subsidized by the government AND mandated paid parental leave.
America, the wealthiest nation to ever exist, somehow cannot afford to provide healthcare or federally mandated paid parental leave.
Singapore offers a comprehensive family support package with $11,000 direct cash payment to new parents, plus a $5,000 grant account to offset medical and education costs.
Parents have the option to contribute an additional $4,000 to that grant account which the government will match dollar for dollar for a maximum $13,000 grant fund for the first child.
Altogether, new parents in Singapore receive $25,000 in support for their first child and increased benefits for additional children.
Once again, I cannot emphasize this enough - these support packages are supplemented by mandatory paid parental leave and universal health care.
If Singapore can do that, then America can too.
America doesn’t make these necessary and beneficial investments because the rich feel oppressed by contributing to the welfare of the society that enriches them and patriarchal people feel oppressed by any social support towards what we consider women’s work, what we consider women’s obligation to PROVIDE to men and society.
There’s an American core belief that it is women’s sole responsibility to shoulder the biological, mental, emotional, and financial burdens of creating and nurturing life outside of society.
American conservatism believes that the only rightful social infrastructure is women’s unpaid, unrecognized, and unsupported labor.
Maternity Care Deserts
Alright, so even with the meager baby bonus - what good is that in maternity care deserts?
According to March of Dimes, there are no maternity care specialists or birthing hospitals in over 35% of American counties.
On this map, red indicates that there are NO birthing hospitals or maternity care providers in that county. As in zero medical professionals or facilities specifically dedicated to serving pregnancy and birth needs.
Over 2.3 million American women live in a county with ZERO maternity and pregnancy care providers.
Obviously, these deserts are concentrated mostly in red states - especially those who criminalize pregnancy.
Just look at Texas! The same state that put a bounty out on abortion care providers where any citizen can report an abortion provider to the state and receive $10,000 paycheck - TWICE THE BABY BONUS PROPOSAL BTW - has MASSIVE deserts where pregnant people cannot access medical care
Make that make sense. You want babies under criminal penalty, but also don’t want hospitals equipped with maternity wards and specialists to safely birth these kids?
What happens to mothers in “pro-life” areas with no maternity care options and bans to abortion healthcare? According to March of Dimes,
Our data confirms that women living in maternity care deserts and counties with low access to care have poorer health before pregnancy, receive less prenatal care, and experience higher rates of preterm birth
Our analysis revealed an excess of over 10,000 preterm births among those living in maternity care deserts and limited access counties in 2020-2022. These findings affirm that US systems, policies, and environments are failing moms and babies.
Conservative policies cause destitution in every way.
Maternity Leave is Not Optional, It’s Necessary
Will the $5,000 baby bonus allow new moms to physically rest and recover from pregnancy and childbirth and bond with their new babies? NOPE.
Because America has no federally mandated paid leave policies - unlike every other industrialized nation in the world. According to National Partnership,
The United States is one of just a few countries in the world with no national paid leave of any kind. This federal policy failure leaves more than 100 million people — 80 percent of U.S. workers — without paid time off after the birth or adoption of a child.
Nearly half of workers (46 percent) are not even guaranteed unpaid, job-protected leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act. Further, about one in 14 workers each year needs leave but does not take it, most often because they cannot afford to take unpaid leave.
I actually feel viscerally disgusted whenever someone brings up declining birth rates while simultaneously saying mandated paid maternity leave is impossible. That maternity leave places a burden on other tax payers and companies, so it’s not feasible.
That actually disgusts me. It actually disgusts me when people talk about the birth rate crisis as if women owe the state when the state is actively disinterested in supporting motherhood and health in any meaningful capacity.
I cannot imagine returning to work immediately after giving birth while still bleeding, and leaking and experiencing the extreme biological exhaustion of creating life and bringing it into this world.
Culturally, we actively DON’T talk about pregnancy and birth costs to women - biologically, emotionally, mentally and beyond. We don’t. Shit I learned more about pregnancy from Ali Wong comedy specials than health class! And I’m not unique in that!
We act like birth costs nothing to women - as if it doesn’t physically mandate rest and BEING CARED FOR.
If you’re concerned about birth rates, but not mandatory maternity leave and healthcare, then you’re an idiot that wants to be subsidized by women.
There’s no way around it. That worldview feels entitled to women subsidizing men and society. If you don’t believe it’s society’s responsibility to invest in care then you have no business talking about birthrates. Full stop.
Thanks for joining this conversation! The embedded YouTube above has some more insights and deeper analysis of what we’ve covered here.
Subscribe for new articles every week!
Drop a line in the comments to let me know your thoughts! I love chatting with you and care about your perspective!
xoxo, Coco
