As the Trump administration moves into its second term, a new cultural agenda has emerged: one focused on reversing the country’s declining birthrate through a series of pronatalist policies. Behind the scenes, the White House has been entertaining proposals ranging from cash “baby bonuses” to government-funded fertility education programs. Though framed as efforts to support American families, these proposals reflect a regressive vision that prioritizes a narrow model of marriage and childbearing, while sidelining reproductive freedom.
This agenda closely aligns with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a policy blueprint that calls for restoring the traditional nuclear family as the “cornerstone” of American society. While some conservatives see this push as a necessary response to falling fertility rates, the movement’s underlying assumptions often conflict with the principles of reproductive justice. The Trump administration is promoting a specific family ideal centered on heterosexual marriage and large families, rather than supporting people’s rights to make informed decisions about if, when, and how to parent.
According to a recent investigation by The New York Times, White House officials have received policy proposals that include reserving 30 percent of Fulbright scholarships for married applicants or those with children, issuing a $5,000 “baby bonus” to new mothers, and promoting menstrual cycle tracking programs to encourage fertility awareness. The administration is also preparing a report expected in May with recommendations to make in vitro fertilization more affordable and accessible. While some members of the pronatalist movement support IVF, others—especially religious conservatives—oppose it because it may involve the destruction of embryos.
Prominent figures in this effort include Vice President J.D. Vance and Elon Musk, both of whom have called for a renewed American “baby boom.” At a 2024 anti-abortion rally, Vance told supporters he wanted to see more “beautiful young men and women” raising children. Musk has argued that declining birth rates threaten the future of civilization and has fathered several children through IVF. These leaders are joined by conservative activists who have submitted their own proposals to the White House, including a draft executive order to create a “National Medal of Motherhood” for women with six or more children.
But many of these proposals reward only a specific kind of family. They privilege married, heterosexual couples and reflect an ideology that sees a woman’s highest contribution to society as motherhood. Activist Simone Collins, who helped author the “Motherhood Medal” idea, argued that family values under Trump are stronger than they were under Biden, citing the number of children Trump officials have and their public appearances with them. This kind of rhetoric reduces family life to a symbol of cultural identity rather than a lived reality shaped by economic and healthcare conditions.
The pronatalist rhetoric from the administration has not been matched with investment in the systems that actually support maternal and reproductive health. In early April, the Department of Health and Human Services cut funding to the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health, which monitors trends in IVF and maternal outcomes. Around the same time, the administration froze over $65 million in grants through the Title X program, leading to clinic closures and reduced access to contraception, STI screening, and prenatal care.
These cuts reveal a disconnect between the administration’s stated desire to support families and its policy decisions. Encouraging women to have more children while reducing their access to basic reproductive healthcare is both contradictory and dangerous. A truly supportive family policy would expand access to prenatal services, contraception, maternal leave, and postpartum care. Instead, the Trump administration appears more interested in symbolic gestures than in building infrastructure that could improve health outcomes.
The administration’s proposals risk incentivizing childbearing without addressing parents’ social, economic, and medical needs. A cash “baby bonus” may appeal to some families, but it does not replace the need for paid leave, affordable childcare, or healthcare coverage. Worse, these bonuses may pressure women into having children without adequate support systems. They also exclude single parents, LGBTQ+ families, and people who choose not to have children.
Several of the administration’s allies have promoted fertility tracking programs as a solution to infertility, reflecting religious and ideological motivations rather than scientific ones. Emma Waters, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, has called for the NIH to fund studies on “natural fertility” and has urged schools to implement menstrual cycle education that discourages hormonal birth control. Fertility awareness programs can help some women understand their reproductive cycles. Still, they are not a substitute for comprehensive reproductive healthcare and should never be promoted as a one-size-fits-all alternative to medical treatment.
Medical professionals have criticized this approach. Dr. Eve Feinberg of Northwestern University warned that equating fertilized embryos with children is “nonsensical” and “dangerous,” noting that such policies carry “grave consequences” for reproductive health. She has argued that reproductive policy must be grounded in science rather than ideology and has raised concerns about the growing influence of religious beliefs on medical decisions around infertility and IVF.
The reproductive justice framework, developed by Black women organizers in the 1990s, provides a powerful alternative to the administration’s narrow vision. Reproductive justice affirms not just the right to abortion and contraception, but also the right to have children and to raise them in safe, sustainable environments. It is built on the principle that every person should have the resources and support to make decisions about their reproductive lives without coercion or discrimination.
If the Trump administration was serious about supporting families, it would strengthen programs like Title X, restore the expanded Child Tax Credit, pass universal paid leave, and guarantee access to affordable healthcare and childcare. Instead, its policies prioritize marriage and childbirth in a way that marginalizes millions of Americans and reinforces inequality.
Pronatalism may be marketed as a way to revitalize the country, but when it excludes, coerces, or penalizes people for their personal choices, it fails to serve the very families it claims to uplift. True family policy must begin with trust in individuals to shape their own futures. Reproductive justice means defending the right to have a child, the right not to, and the right to parent in dignity, not only for some, but for all.
