Having grown up in a world where overpopulation was promoted as an existential threat, I have problems wrapping my brain around the idea that humanity is now condemned to extinction because people, well, well, The correct type of people – They are not procreating.
But that is precisely the message that emanates from a White House in slavery to the “Pro-Family” project of the Heritage 2025 Foundation, and the extravagant billionaire Elon Musk, who spreads its seed in a compulsive search to reverse the decrease in the world birth rate.
“I think that for most countries, they should see the birth rate as the biggest problem they need to solve,” Musk said last year at an investment conference in Saudi Arabia. “If you do not make new humans, there is no humanity and all the policies of the world do not matter.”
Personally, Musk is not avoiding any effort.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, it has at least 14 children with four women who consider very intelligent, and possibly many more. He calls this breeding his “legion” after the largest military unit in the Roman Empire.
“To reach the Legion level before the Apocalypse,” he sent a text message to Ashley St. Clair, who has committed it in a battle of child support on their little son, “we will have to use substitutes.” (Paging Margaret Atwood).
It doesn't matter that Musk is the richest man in the world and can easily afford his harem. Having so many children with so many women is not just shaking, it is hostile to be a good father. What kind of conservative family values are exhibited here?
Elon Musk takes his son X Æ A-XII after a meeting at the Washington Capitol last year.
(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)
Frankly, Musk seems to be a terrible father. He takes his 4 -year -old son as a brilliant object. He called the child his “tender accessory.” He has told the world that he considers his transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson, “dead, killed by the mind of the alarm clock”, and that he was deceived to register in his gender transition. Is it surprising that in a court present Wilson described him as angry and absent and said he no longer wants to be related to him?
The musk is not alone in his passion for procreation. The “pronatalism” in fact, is having a rather magician moment. For all the wrong reasons.
The New York Times reported last week that the White House is entertaining ideas about how to make American women have more babies. They include offering a $ 5,000 bonus after a baby is born, giving a medal of honor to women who have six children or more and teach women about their menstrual cycles to know when they are ovulating.
After fighting sex education, do conservatives now want to teach it to facilitate pregnancy? (Do you see what I mean about all the wrong reasons?)
No one really knows why the birth rate has decreased, but it is a global phenomenon. Some theorize that as women's education and employment increase, fertility rates decrease. It makes sense to me. Controlling fertility is one of the best ways in which women can improve their lives and the lives of their children.
From a health perspective, childbirth is much, much more risky than abortion.
The idea, articulated in 2021 by the Judge of the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, while voting to gut Roe vs. Wade, that women with unwanted pregnancies can simply get babies, leave them at the door of the Fire House, then pass their lives as if nothing had happened, it is crazy.
Women die In childbirth, especially in the United States, where our maternal mortality rate is the highest in all rich countries. In 2023, according to the centers for disease control and prevention, the maternal mortality rate of the United States was 18.6 deaths per 100,000 living births. In 2022, black women died at a rate of 49.5 deaths per 100,000 living births. Compare this terrible figure with, for example, Norway, which has zero deaths per 100,000 living births. Or Switzerland, with one. Or Sweden, with three.
Despite our wealth and resources, it seems that we cannot provide the same access to quality medical care, nor have we been able to overcome systemic problems such as racism and socio -economic inequality. Which is a shame, because more than 80% of American maternal deaths are considered preventable.
It should hardly be said that people who value heterosexual marriage and large families are the same that offer little support to American families who are in difficulties, oppose reproductive rights and have tried to close health research on women before being ashamed to restore it.
If pronatalists really wanted to encourage larger families, they would dedicate themselves to facilitating fatherhood.
They would press for universal medical care and the generous and mandatory remunerated parental license. They would support high quality and affordable child care, an overwhelming expense for most families. They would offer early childhood education programs. They would increase children's tax credit, which can drastically reduce the child poverty rate. They would require workplaces to be friendly to the family. They would drastically reduce the cost of the university, or better yet, they would do it for free.
Offering meaningless maternity medals or small unique payments are nothing more than pronatal advertising stunts. American families deserve something better.
Bluesky: @rabelan.bsky. Social threads: @rabcrian
