The obsession of Gops with women who have babies is very similar to the past

President Donald Trump is As reported, entertaining Policies proposals to encourage American women to have more children. But the proposals do not include basic and undeniably effective ideas such as subsidized child care or paental paid license. Instead, the Trump administration seems to be considering a “baby bonus” in cash of $ 5,000 and a “national maternity medal” for any woman who has six or more children.

Policy proposals are part of a greater impulse of conservative Republicans to boost the decrease in the birth rates of the United States by persuading families so that they have more children. The proposals fall directly to what is known as the pro-natalist movement: an ideology created to increase population rates in decline that has historically been co-opted by extreme right-right groups, including fascist and authoritarian regimes.

The contemporary pro-natalist movement has found a Trump leader, who has aligned with some of the most extreme defenders of ideology, including Extreme Right influencer Jack Posobiec and billionaire Elon Musk. Musk, who was never far from Trump’s side at the beginning of his second term, has engendered 14 children and routinely expresses concerns about the “collapse of the population” due to the decrease in birth rates. Vice President JD Vance made fun of the “ladies of cats without children” during the campaign and recently urged Americans to have “more babies.” And Trump has proudly designated “fertilization president.”

At the same time, the president has literally made it more dangerous to be pregnant and give birth in the United States, he has boasted his role in the dismantling of federal abortion protections and commented that “it is something beautiful to see” states prohibit abortion. Dozens of pregnant women have almost died due to these prohibitions of abortion at the state level because they are so vague that also criminalize spontaneous abortion care. Trump has also reduced the Social Security Network, aggressor Vital resources of family planning for low -income women and implementation Policies that are addressed to immigrants and children LGBTQ+.

It makes you ask you who, exactly, your administration is saying you have more children and why.

The medals for women who give birth to many children and cash bonds are not new ideas of the Trump administration, said Denise Lynn, professor of history and director of Gender Studies at the University of Southern Indiana. The fascist and authoritarian regimes of the past have used similar pro-natalist ideologies to restore conservative family values ​​within society and relegate women to the home, where their only duty is to have children.

Adolf Hitler of Germany, the Augusto Pinochet of Chile and Benito Mussolini of Italy employed pro-natalist policies to encourage specific types of married couples to produce children for the state. In Nazi Germany, White Women received a bronze medal for having four children, silver for six and gold for eight children. The Nazi party also gave financial loans to white families; Couples could have more children to reduce how much money they owe to the state.

“Feminist policies actually benefit everyone, including men, and yet we persist in promoting the policies that will hurt us all in the long term.”

One of the first things that many fascist regimes did was prohibit abortion and restrict birth control. Trump has proudly assumed the responsibility of repealing Roe v. Wade, which led to a dozen abortion prohibitions in states throughout the country. Republicans in the current administration continue to attack access to contraception and retreat access to general sexual and reproductive health care.

“There have been many studies that have shown that with access to higher education, with access to medical care and prenatal, postnatal and perinatal care, and all these other things, everyone’s standard of living increases in a culture,” said Lynn, whose investigation is focused on the American communist party during the great depression and the cold war, specifically around the feelings antifascism during those eras.

“Then, feminist policies actually benefit everyone, including men, and yet we persist in promoting the policies that will hurt us all in the long term.”

News themezone spoke with Lynn about the history of pro-naturalism in fascist regimes and some of the lines that see the situation today in the United States.

How is pro-naturalism defined?

It is a political position in favor of the birth that has historically revolved around fears about the decrease in populations. In general, when the part in power shares that pro-natalist vision that can appear in public policies. So, for example, laws against abortion are pro-natalists, anti-nation control control or contraceptive stigma is pro-natalist. I would even argue that abstinence only programs are pro-natalists because many pro-natalists see the heterosexual relationship married as the epitome of citizenship, and thus enforce it in education is a necessary part of a pro-natalist political position.

The fundamental idea behind this is that states depend on the reproductive work of women to reproduce [their] Citizenship, and therefore, is expected that reproductive bodies will serve the State by producing citizens.

From your research, how have pro-natalist policies and ideologies work together or within authoritarian or fascist regimes?

Within authoritarian or fascist regimes, reproductive work becomes a state obligation specifically for women. Therefore, it is an obligation that is in service to the State.

In Nazi Germany, it was framed such as producing future soldiers and workers to build the nation and, at least in the 1930s, to combat wars to progress in the creation of the “Lebensraum” or Hitler’s vital space. The pro-natalist movement was really strong in Europe after World War I. He would argue that he was still present in the United States, but the imperatives were different because there was so much human loss after the First World War that there were countries that saw deep demographic decreases. But in Nazi Germany, which also had a great loss of population, which, of course, means less men to marry, less children to have, they saw that this endangers their future security. And then, of course, in Nazi Germany, it is together with racial imperatives who needed to perpetuate the white Germanic stock. That was when we saw the “Racial hygiene” laws become part of state policy in Nazi Germany.

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Part of his investigation focuses on the anti-fascism and the American Communist Party, specifically how women in the Communist Party defended themselves against pro-natalist policies. You wrote in a research article that “in Hitler’s Germany and other fascist states such as Italy, Spain and Austria, the communists believed that there was an effort to” nationalize “the motherhood of women in service to the State.” Can you talk to me more about that?

The people who studied feared that women lose all autonomy and would be literally owned by the nation: their bodies would be owned by the nation, their children’s bodies would be owned by the nation. That bodily sovereignty would no longer belong to women, and that all decision -making was now influenced by national concerns and certainly not influenced by personal concerns or even medical concerns. It is framed as an imperative that women have babies for nations and not for their own emotional, mental, physical and well welfare well -being.

Traditionally, we think of childbirth in the past, since children were used as workers for the family, which their existence was seen as something that would help a family. In the pro-natalist state, children are workers who serve the State.

One of the things that I discuss in my most recent research focuses on the activism of anti-corean war between black radicals. One of his great concerns was that they basically told them that they needed to produce cannon fodder for future state wars. This link among its children became: the State needs to produce soldiers.

I want to talk about whether you see any through lines from that point in history to what is happening today in the United States.

I am covering the attacks on the abortive pill, Mifepristone. In it Updated complaint From three anti-election states that try to restrict access to the pill, they use the pro-natalist terminology quite barefoot that makes me think about what you just said: “The efforts of the defendants that allow the remote dispensation of abortion medicines have caused abortions for women in the plaintiffs and the births decreased in the statements of the plaintiff in the plaintiffs in the plaintiffs in the plaintiffs.

Oh my God. Yes, that is a great example of pro-natalism.

You wrote in that same article: “In Nazi Germany, improved economic conditions led to a higher birth rate. But pro-natalist policies helped foster this increase, particularly the laws that prohibit abortion and allowed the prosecution of those who carry out and receive abortions.”

It is difficult not to think about what is happening in the United States when I read that. The fall in federal abortion protections in 2022 has led to almost half of the country that criminalizes attention, and doctors are being prosecuted and pregnant people are dying.

Dobbs’s decision [overturning Roe v. Wade] It was a pro-natalist policy. I like the language of the current movement, the language of forced birth policies, because by prohibiting abortion, they really eliminate the autonomy of women.

One of the problems in the United States is that we are not only limiting access to abortion and birth control, but we have forced birth policies in a country that has aggressively rejected things such as maternity leave, Medicare for all, appropriate prenatal and postnatal care and affordable child care. These things have not been remedied even when Roe was in his place.

One of the arguments behind pro-naturalism is that the State needs people to do labor: at this time we head towards a demographic cliff with a population that ages and less younger people to do the necessary work for society and take care of the elderly. Of course, this could be resolved through immigration and creation of roads towards citizens, but the same people committed to pro-naturalism take hard positions against immigration. This only demonstrates that the main objective of pro-naturalism is to enforce second-class citizens in women.

Is there any pro-natalist policy of Nazi Germany or other fascist regimes that have studied that they are highlighted or similar to those that the Trump administration is entertaining?

The other day I had a conversation with one of my colleagues about the proposed allocation of $ 5,000 for someone who has a child. That reminded me of the loans that Germany Na Zi gave white Arias families. That is very similar. It is also a joke: $ 5,000 are not going to do much.

According to Racial hygiene laws of Nazi Germany, they gave families, specifically the husband, who promised that they could reduce their amount of recovery with each later child. One of the great things that the women I studied, and talked about that in the Cold War, is the Triple K fascist: Kinder, Küche, Kirche, which means “Children, Kitchen, Church.” This pro-natalist ideology sought to limit women, essentially, second-class citizens.

I still think about the idea of ​​giving a “National Maternity Medal“For women who have six children and the similarity with the maternity medals of Nazi Germany.

It really reduces women to breeders. Ignore the deep complexity of childbirth. He has a uterus and ovaries, but that does not mean that he has the ability to have children. But if you can’t have children and have a uterus and ovaries, don’t you have status in your own country? Marginalizes parents and fatherhood. There are so many layers of problems.

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

How does pro-natalism cross the race and eugenics?

In the history of the United States, pro-natalist policies were directly linked to eugenics. Eugenics arose in the United States when middle and high white women had fewer children, while immigrants and people of color continued to have more children. Much of that has to do with access to contraceptive information, and the eugenists wanted to turn that script completely and promote white birth rates. But only appropriate white birth rates.

One of the doctors involved in the case of the 1927 Buck V Supreme Court. Bell received an appointment for the Nazi government. It was this woman, Carrie Buck, who had limited himself to a mental health institution. It is likely that he has probably been raped by a doctor there, but she was pregnant with a second child out of marriage and was accused of being “idiot“Which was a term eugenics for someone who could have had a second to fourth grade mentality.

Carrie Buck was white, but the Eugenists said: “Well, we don’t want the idiots to have children, and the Nazi government will learn from that case.” Essentially, Nazis really liked our cases of racial hygiene because it glorified not only white births, but appropriate white births.

Of course, as the twentieth century progresses, the eugenics itself stigmatizes, but is still alive. Therefore, black women, Latinas and indigenous women faced forced sterilization, while white women were often denied permanent sterilization until they had a specific number of children.

Do you see any of that today?

We can definitely still see the eugenicist language today. I do not believe that it is a coincidence that forced birth policies endanger people of color more because white nationalists have no interest in their birth results. They are just worried about producing more white babies.

There was a Louisiana senator who basically saying“We have a great maternal mortality rate if it does not include black women.” And that was only a couple of years ago. Our forced birth policies make disadvantages of people who are already at a disadvantage, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

Where are we going from here?

One of the things I think is a lot of question about health. Politicians do not talk about reproductive care as a health issue. We see conversations on social networks that say: “Well, birth is a natural part of life.” And, of course, but maternal mortality rates were very high until the 1950s and one of the things that changed was access to the care of the reproductive body.

Those poor birth results were not long ago. I worry that we head towards a future that will seem a lot to our past. I just hope I don’t last long.