Can the Trump administration encourage more women to have more babies, reverse a nearly two-decades-long decline in the U.S. birth rate, and avoid civilizational catastrophe? The Heritage Foundation and some Christian groups hope so.
Heritage’s Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for the Trump administration, said the nation’s top priority is to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.” That puts family ahead of recommendation No. 2 (“Dismantle the administrative state”) and No. 3 (“Defend our nation’s sovereignty (and) borders”).
President of the Heritage Foundation Kevin D. Roberts (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
“It’s time for policymakers to elevate family authority, formation and cohesion as their top priority and even use government power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family,” Heritage President Kevin Roberts wrote in Project 2025.
“Conservatives have just two years and one shot to get this right. With enemies at home and abroad, there is no margin for error. Time is running short. If we fail, the fight for the very idea of America may be lost,” he warned.
Heritage, along with Christian pro-family and pro-natalist groups, have proposed a range of policies designed to put conservative family values at the forefront of U.S. policy. Among the proposals: Cash payments for families who have more children, with payments going only to married heterosexual couples so that the government promotes the institution of marriage, not just births.
People magazine published an article yesterday drawing comparison between some of the Trump administration’s ideas and what happened in Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia.
One proposal under consideration at the White House, according to the magazine, would bestow a “National Medal of Motherhood” to moms in the U.S. who have six or more children.
Ceremony of presenting the Cross of Honor of the German Mother (Musueum of Polish Children)
“In 1930s Nazi Germany, Hitler introduced a similar ‘Cross of Honor of the German Mother,’ a decorative medal that honored ‘children-rich’ mothers of German heritage, with the exception of German Jews,” the report notes.
Trump, who has called himself “the fertilization president,” says he supports “baby bonuses for a new baby boom.” These efforts have the personal support of Vice President JD Vance and DOGE head Elon Musk, who has fathered 14 children with four different women. Some in the administration also are working to abolish all abortion and access to abortion drugs.
Trump also signed a Feb. 18 executive order “expanding access to in vitro fertilization for Americans.” As he explained in an accompanying fact sheet, Trump’s order “recognizes the importance of family formation and that our nation’s public policy must make it easier for loving and longing mothers and fathers to have children.”
Greater access to IVF could facilitate more babies, but some evangelical groups including Focus on the Family and the Southern Baptist Convention oppose IVF because the process typically involves the destruction of a number of viable human embryos.
So far, the Trump administration has done little to institute new family policies that will lead to more births, but one policy change from the Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy already is in effect. Duffy, a conservative Catholic and former Fox Business cohost, said he will emphasize funding for geographic areas of the country that have higher-than-average birth and marriage rates.
The policy change could shift federal spending away from cities to rural areas, and from areas dominated by Democrats to those dominated by Republicans. It’s not clear how this shift in transportation funding will increase births, but it’s a way of showing favor to constituencies that support the president.
“This is a profoundly wise federal policy development that Focus on the Family strongly supports,” said the $142 million nonprofit, which says falling fertility rates can be blamed on “the sexual revolution (ironically), aborton, the advent of ‘the pill’ and the mistaken belief that humans are bad for the environment.”
Other proposals for supporting Trump’s pro-baby agenda include:
- Restricting some Fullbright Program support for international studies to married students
- Educating women in “natural fertility” so they can monitor their menstrual cycles in order to have more babies
Project 2025’s policy plans for families include ideas championed by conservative Christians for years:
- Outlawing pornography and imprisoning those who produce it
- Removing theories from public schools that “poison our children,” including “the noxious tenets of Critical Race Theory and “gender ideology”
- Using welfare funds to “provide educational information on healthy marriage and relationships at Title X family planning clinics’
- “Implement a pro-fatherhood messaging campaign” similar to the one created by Florida Gov. Don DeSantis
- “Prioritize funding for home-based child care, not universal day care”
Meanwhile, Trump is making budget cuts across the federal government, including programs serving families. He supports the Project 2025 goal to “eliminate the Head Start program,” which provides funds for early education and family services for poor people.
Budget cuts have also come for the Division of Reproductive Health, which is the agency dealing with IVF and maternal health, reported The New York Times.
Related articles:
Demographic decline is upon us — what’s next? | Analysis by Erich Bridges
Remembering the early days of controversy over IVF in America | Analysis by Kristen Thomason
JD Vance and Al Mohler use fuzzy math to sound an alarm on falling birth rates | Analysis by Rick Pidcock