President Donald Trump will soon release policy proposals to reverse declining birthrates, and the NYT has a piece out on the two pro-natalist camps.
President Donald Trump will soon release policy proposals to reverse declining birthrates — the New York Times released a report today on the pro-natalist movement behind the proposals.
The NYT article explained the two most prominent camps of pro-family policy thinkers: the Silicon Valley pro-natalists and the more traditional pro-family conservatives. The former embraces modern reproductive technology as the best means to accomplish a pro-baby society, and its loudest advocates are father of at least 13 Elon Musk, and Simone and Malcolm Collins, atheists whose use of genetic screening to select preferred traits among their embryos some have called eugenics.
Pro-natalists focus on the numbers game: the number of children a couple has, how efficiently those children can be born and genetically screened, how much it might cost to have a child. One of the policy ideas the Collins family submitted was to “bestow a ‘National Medal of Motherhood’ to mothers with six or more children,” the Times reported. Simone and Malcolm’s approach to family is data-driven and based in a deep desire to help population growth and save civilization from plummeting birth rates. They don’t believe in much other than numbers. This Guardian profile of the couple sheds light on their unique and somewhat morally questionable view of the family.
Others here have explored the pro-natalist movement’s defects, modern reproductive technology’s dangers, how best to address the indirect costs of parenthood, and how to create a baby-friendly culture. Trump wants to make it easier for people to have children. He’ll hopefully take the recommendations of pro-family advocates who care to address the root causes of infertility and for whom children not just numbers. As Emma Waters, one of those advocates, told the Times: “Pronatalism strictly speaks to having more babies. Our ultimate goal is not just more babies but more families formed.”