In the Book of Genesis, God orders Adam and Eve to “go forth and multiply.” Members of the pronatalism movement aim to make that directive exponential.
Often without religious references, pronatalists promote having as many children as one can support. They form a subset of the pro-life movement focused more on survival than morality.
“Pronatalists recognize that declining birth rates pose an existential threat to civilization, but many of them lack the deeper cultural and religious frameworks that have historically sustained high fertility rates,” Emma Waters, senior research associate at The Heritage Foundation, told The Washington Times.
Concerns about declining birth rates have gained traction, particularly among technology entrepreneurs and policy thinkers who see low fertility as a long-term threat to economic stability, national security and human survival.
“The way that pronatalists view the issue tends to be that there’s a problem, which is not enough children, and the reason that that matters is because of the national impact it will have on all aspects, from end-of-life care to education to military readiness,” Ms. Waters said.
Elon Musk has repeatedly warned that falling birth rates could lead to economic ruin. “A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces, by far,” Mr. Musk tweeted in 2022.
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The billionaire entrepreneur has backed up his rhetoric by fathering a dozen known children with at least three women. Mr. Musk also invests in fertility technology, cozying to the broader movement increasingly spanning Silicon Valley and elite policy circles.
The U.S. fertility rate has steadily declined over the past decade and a half. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a rate of 69.5 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 in 2007. Fast-forward to 2022, and that number dropped to 56.0.
In response, the country is shifting its idea of birth. In 2021, the CDC reported that nearly 97,130 babies were born via assisted reproductive technologies, primarily in vitro fertilization, a figure larger than Pasadena’s Rose Bowl could contain.
The past decade, in particular, has carried a surge in reproductive technology. The number of treatment cycles more than doubled from 2012 through 2021. As a result, births via the procedures have increased by nearly 50%. One in every 42 babies born in 2021 was conceived through fertility treatments.
Critics of pronatalism argue that its technology-driven vision promotes a utilitarian view of human life that prioritizes quantity over the intrinsic value of children.
Patrick Brown, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and pro-family commentator, told The Times that the secular wing of the pronatalist movement often embraces embryo selection and genetic optimization in ways that are unsettling to traditional conservatives.
“If you look at somebody like an Elon Musk and that of strain of … more like tech side of the coalition, they’re all gung-ho about embryo selection in IVF and increasing, you know, using polygenic scores to choose your offspring to give you the greatest control over their IQ and that sort of stuff,” Mr. Brown said. “And I think that’s where religious conservatives tend to have the biggest area of disagreement, right?”
‘Quality control’
Preimplantation genetic screening in the U.S. operates in a regulatory gray area, allowing companies such as Genomic Prediction, backed by Sam Altman, to assess embryos for health risks.
Geneticist Adam Rutherford is skeptical of the hype over the technology. He told The Guardian that the supposed IQ increase from embryo selection is “the type of thing you can change by having a decent night’s sleep or a cup of coffee before doing an IQ test.”
More philosophical critics warn that fertility technologies could erode the natural bonds of family and turn children into designer products.
“The more that human reproduction becomes a matter of technology and financial transaction, the more we can expect that ‘quality control’ will become part of the process — soft eugenics in the name of customer service,” critic Daniel Frost wrote in the religious journal First Things.
Attitudes about abortion also divide traditional pro-lifers and pronatalists, Mr. Brown said. Religious conservatives have long fought to restrict abortion access, but many secular pronatalists see legal abortion as a separate issue or even as a necessity to ensure that childbirth remains voluntary.
Mr. Musk argues that abortion is a problem when it significantly reduces birth rates. Others avoid the topic altogether.
“Once you have birth control and abortions and whatnot, now you can still satisfy limbic instinct but not procreate,” Mr. Musk said in a 2023 interview with Tucker Carlson.
“You might get Elon Musk to agree that late-term abortion is bad, but beyond that, there’s little common ground between secular pronatalists and the traditional pro-life movement,” Mr. Brown said.
Policy and pronatalism
Pennsylvania-based influencers Malcolm and Simone Collins have taken an especially public role in advocating for high birth rates.
The Collinses, who describe themselves as “hyper-pronatalist,” have embraced embryo selection, genetic screening and unconventional parenting methods as part of their mission to produce as many children as possible.
They have also attempted to create an “intentionally constructed religion,” which they describe as “technically atheist” but structured around rituals meant to instill values in their children, The Guardian reported.
The Collinses used Genomic Prediction’s services for medical screenings but farmed out “the controversial stuff” to a team that claims to predict factors such as a child’s happiness and future income.
“Obviously, we looked at IQ,” Mr. Collins told The Guardian. They ruled out embryos with high risks for cancer and severe mental health conditions such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. They made no exclusions for autism, which they see as an integral part of identity.
“The vast majority of right-leaning people in Silicon Valley are pronatalist. You’re probably looking at 100,000 people or something that subscribe to our specific vision,” Mr. Collins said. “They are young, radical thinkers who are working to have children.”
Critics argue that the Collinses’ model turns childbearing into a strategic experiment rather than a natural or spiritual calling.
The ideological debates haven’t stopped governments worldwide from addressing the fertility problem through policy. Hungary and Poland have attempted to boost birth rates through financial incentives, but results have been mixed.
Hungary’s tax breaks and grants briefly raised fertility from 1.23 births per woman in 2011 to 1.59 in 2020, but it has since fallen to 1.36, according to the Financial Times. Poland’s Family 500+ program showed a short-lived rise, but birth rates have since hit their lowest since World War II, Politico reported.
Even Sweden and France, with generous family policies, remain below replacement levels. Sweden’s fertility dropped from 1.9 per woman a decade ago to 1.7. France’s fell from 2.03 per woman in 2010 to 1.68 in 2023, French news outlet Le Monde reported.
Vice President J.D. Vance has made his stance on prenatal policy clear. He supports expanding the child tax credit from $2,000 to $5,000 per child to ease financial burdens on families. He has also criticized childlessness among leaders while proposing higher taxes for childless adults and suggesting that parents should have greater voting power than childless Americans.
“When you see countries with declining birth rates, it tends to correspond with the people who have lost a sense of purpose and meaning and investment in future generations,” Ms. Waters said.
She said a flourishing fertility rate depends on profound beliefs in human value.
“My concern with some in the pronatalist space is that they’re focusing so heavily on having children — the outcome — that they’ve neglected the prior commitments, the prior values that are needed to actually sustain childbearing long term,” she said.
As fertility technology becomes more common in America, Mr. Brown suggests soul-searching.
“Do we want parents to have the ability to not just choose if they have a son or daughter, which is pretty unique in the United States to begin with?” he said. “Sex-selective embryo implantation is illegal in most countries that practice it. When it comes to these sorts of things, do we really want the U.S. to be the Wild West?”
• Emma Ayers can be reached at eayers@washingtontimes.com.
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