Horrifying. White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Women to Have More Children

[Horse with no Name]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/us/politics/baby-bonuses-fertility-planning-trump-aides-assess-ideas-to-boost-birthrate.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The White House has been hearing out a chorus of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children, an early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda pushed by many of its allies on the right to reverse declining birthrates and push conservative family values.

One proposal shared with aides would reserve 30 percent of scholarships for the Fulbright program, the prestigious, government-backed international fellowship, for applicants who are married or have children.

Another would give a $5,000 cash “baby bonus” to every American mother after delivery.

A third calls on the government to fund programs that educate women on their menstrual cycles — in part so they can better understand when they are ovulating and able to conceive.

[atreides1]

1. They have a name for it

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lebensborn-program

[yardwork]

5. I knew there was something familiar about this.

[exboyfil]

11. My first thought

[Aristus]

20. Or this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Honour_of_the_German_Mother

[tanyev]

2. I'm gonna guess they're NOT considering health insurance, childcare or free school meals.

[onethatcares]

23. well jeez..

everybody knows $5000.00 is all it takes to raise a child

[bucolic_frolic]

3. The Pervert Proposals

These people have an obsession with controlling women's lives and overreaching the boundaries a good government has for its citizens.

[ok_cpu]

4. The same republicans who have spent decades

telling everyone about anchor babies and that poor people have kids just for whatever negligible, below sustenance-level benefit they get? Now want entitlements for MAGA babies?

BTW, birth rates are down because people can't afford homes, food, to pay the Dr., hospital, or health care for the mother and child, and have no right to leave and cannot afford to miss work. Fix that shit.

[Wounded Bear]

9. Actually, birthrates naturally fall in 1st world industrialized countries...

especially those in which women have expanded rights that approximate those of men.

[exboyfil]

12. And therein we have our solution

God forbid they come to that realization and get enough of the knuckle draggers to agree with them.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

34. EXACTLY!!

[underpants]

6. Gilead

[Ping Tung]

7. "The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor." ― Voltaire

[Duppers]

40. THIS❗

+ Some have yet to recognize that the planet is already suffering from our overuse.

"Overconsumption, particularly since the 1970s, has led to a global ecological overshoot, meaning we're using more renewable natural resources than the planet can regenerate.

This is manifested in a variety of ways, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and degradation of ecosystems."

Climate Change:
Human activities, especially burning fossil fuels, have drastically increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, leading to rising global temperatures and severe weather events."

All of this is obvious to most of us, but for those unconvinced, baby machines,
See:

"Friends of the earth" - UK site for specific info.

[Wounded Bear]

8. I actually kind of like the "baby bonus" idea...

It would help new parents deal with some of the expenses and such.

The rest of it is right wing bullshit to force women into incubating new generations of proles.

[BigMin28]

14. 5000 dollars

Won't go far. Given the state of insurance, medical bills could eat a good portion of that. Repubs as usual are cruel, angry and cheap.

[Wounded Bear]

16. Granted, but I was working in the "anything helps" realm...

If we could force a living wage out of the oligarchs and this option, we'd be talking.

Oh, and real universal health care.

[whathehell]

15. A Living Wage

would do the same, possibly even encouraging more to become parents.

[Ace Rothstein]

24. Heavily subsidized childcare would be huge for parents.

Those costs have gotten out of control in the past decade.

[exboyfil]

36. That might lead to the conclusion

That for many families the most valuable contribution to the family would be providing childcare for your own child. Childcare has gone up because you want a competent person watching the most important thing in your life. That person needs to be compensated for those services (salary, healthcare, retirement, social security, and Medicare) as well as being taxed on that work by the state and fed. The expenses for the childcare facility have to also be factored in. Now the state comes in and subsidizes to allow the parent to work a job with little career growth potential. Perhaps there is a better model (stay at home but watch other parent's kids as well).

[marble falls]

32. It's a good idea, if there's contiuing help in year two after that fat first year $5K has been burnt down ...

... there needs to be help every year after to keep those kids from becoming homeless or poorly educated.

[obamanut2012]

10. May the Lord Open

[Blue Full Moon]

13. Talking out of both sides of their mouth.

They are trying to decrease the population. Complain about poor and working Americans. They have automation and robots to replace us. The United States of America has the highest maternal and infant mortality rates of modern countries. They want more babies? What, for sacrifice to the devil?

[Johonny]

19. They want more poor white people

But they have plan as to what to do with them after they're born.

[marble falls]

31. Poor enough to keep working, well off enough to buy shit.

[Aviation Pro]

17. Why is everything $5,000 with this cohort of fucks?

How about $180,000 for a boy and $200,000 for a girl (i.e. enough to raise them through 18)?

[Johonny]

18. The ways to comvice couples to have more kids

Include, universal health care, strong unions that raise workers salaries, lower housing costs, free daycare, good schools, . . .

You know, the shit the right is totally against.

[maveric]

21. White women. Right?

[eppur_se_muova]

42. That's the thing that surprised me -- why didn't they just say, *explicitly*, that it's just for white women ?

People in contact with reality already know it's true, and will be neither shocked or surprised. Those who aren't, won't notice, or won't care.

[usedtobedemgurl]

22. In Newfoundland, Canada, we get baby bonuses.

But it goes on until the child reaches EIGHTEEN years of age:

This benefit is a tax-free amount paid monthly to help low-income families with the cost of raising children under 18 years of age. The Early childhood nutrition supplement (ECNS) is an additional benefit paid to qualifying families. Benefits are combined with the CCB into a single monthly payment.

For July 2024 to June 2025, you may be entitled to:

$152.16 per month for the first child;
$161.33 per month for the second child;
$173.25 per month for the third child; and
$186.16 per month for each additional child.

What they are proposing is nothing compared to that. We also have free healthcare! And, if you have worked for a company more than 20 weeks straight, you can be entitled to a total of 52 weeks of unpaid leave. Remember, even if it is unpaid, you are receiving the baby bonus! One of my friends took a year off after having a baby.

I believe all of these would be a great start to encouraging folks to have babies. Free prenatal healthcare, free healthcare in general, paid baby bonuses for low income families, until the child is 18, and up to a year off for maternity leave without the fear of losing your job. Of course there can be more, but that is a solid starting point.

[dalton99a]

25. Put 1,000% tariff on baby products

https://apnews.com/article/baby-products-tariffs-strollers-car-seats-96496556c8913f521021d0c165eca977

Strollers and other baby products will get more expensive – and harder to find – with tariffs
By DEE-ANN DURBIN
Updated 5:40 AM CDT, April 20, 2025

Sam Rutledge and his wife have a baby due in mid-July, so they thought they had a few more months to research and buy the gear they’ll need.

But President Donald Trump’s tariff announcement in early April turned the couple’s slow walk into a sprint. In the past few weeks, they’ve bought two strollers, a car seat, a nursery glider, a crib and a high chair. All of them are made overseas.

“These are all pretty expensive under normal conditions, but when it became clear tariffs were coming we decided to buy them in case they became prohibitively expensive,” said Rutledge, who is a high school physics teacher.

Raising a child in America has never been cheap. In the first year alone, it costs an average of $20,384, according to Baby Center, a parenting website. But tariffs – ranging from 10% for imports from most countries to 145% for imports from China -- will make it many times more expensive for new parents.

An estimated 90% of the core baby care products and the parts that go into making baby paraphernalia – from bottles and diaper pails to strollers and car seats – are made in Asia, according to the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, a U.S. trade group. The vast majority come from China.

...

[Maru Kitteh]

26. Ruling class needs disposables. First thing you must control are the breeding females.

This is sadly expected. They haven’t been very cagey about it after all.

[Horse with no Name]

28. It's getting quite scary

The next logical step will be for them to outlaw birth control

[Wounded Bear]

41. They're working on it...nt

[marble falls]

27. It's simple ...

... support women's rights, provide daycare, better education, get rid of student loans, extend voting rights, offer living wages, universal healthcare ...........

Make the decision to have children or not so heavily dependent on economics.

Tax the obscenely rich.

[valleyrogue]

38. That won't matter.

The economy has nothing whatsoever to do with the trend of fewer and fewer women marrying and having kids. More and more women are refusing to do it, and more and more of them prefer to be single and not have kids. It’s never going to change.

[Bayard]

29. "educate women on their menstrual cycles"

What that actually means is--we will track your cycles, and tell you the most opportune time to breed. Oh--and to make sure there are no abortions.

[eppur_se_muova]

43. Women could use that to *prevent* unwanted pregnancies -- unless the Reich wingers spread disinfo through it. nt

[Vinca]

30. This boils down to a large chunk on the right viewing women only as brood mares.

Elon is apparently building a stable for his down in Texas.

[Takket]

33. what they want is a christo-fascist army so they can wage war against Muslims, Jews, and China.

[synni]

35. Women are using their brains, not their vaginas

This threatens incels to no end.

[valleyrogue]

37. Won't matter.

Women will never again return to the 1950s. They’re done with that lifestyle. More and more women are rejecting marriage, and that is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. It is a concept that needs to die out.

[Dawson Leery]

39. No!

[Torchlight]

44. Provide comprehensive pre- and post-natal care

to every mother to the extent of the French system, and I may consider it something other than the GOP's crass desire for a whiter world.

[valleyrogue]

45. Can't read-paywalled. n/t

[ProfessorGAC]

46. The Cash Proposal Will Cost...

...$18-20 billion per year.
These are the same guts who cut USAID "to save money".
This eliminates 8.33% of Musk's supposed savings. I actually think it's 120% because Musk's estimate has one too many zeroes in it.
Finally, this proposal is a redistribution of wealth. Doesn't that crowd call that communism?