The U.S. birthrate, like the rate in many other Western countries, has fallen below the replacement level of 2.1 children per childbearing female. In 2023, U.S. fertility hit a historical low of 1.62.
While everyone agrees the consequences for the future would be terrible if this continues, no one knows what to do about it. The White House has been soliciting policy ideas on how to convince women to have more babies, including "baby bonuses" and ways to educate women about ovulation. Some of these things have been tried in other countries and haven't moved the needle.
A group of mostly men have decided to try and do something about it. In 2023, they created Natal Conference, or NatalCon, an annual conference that seeks to find solutions to the lack of babies in America.
“Natal Conference has no political or ideological goal other than a world in which our children can have grandchildren,” it says on the conference's website.
But the left doesn't see it that way. Madeline Kearns, writing in The Free Press, attended the 2025 Natalcon in March. At the time, she was noticeably pregnant and was greeted at the entrance to the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin by a small group of radical left protesters.
The organizer of the protest, a leader of the Austin Students for a Democratic Society, is Arishia Papri, 20.
“I think everyone who came to this, who’s coming to this, knows what they are here for,” said Papri. “This is a conference of neo-Nazi, eugenic, racist, pseudoscientific ideologies.”
This kid must have fallen asleep during sex ed. There's nothing "pseudoscientific" about making babies.
Indeed, neither is there anything specifically "right-wing" about Natal Conference. The list of speakers was an eclectic mix of "social media influencers, religious conservatives, tech optimists, economists, demographers, and researchers," according to The Free Press.
However, most of the attendees and speakers were male. The founder of Natalcon, Kevin Dolan, is a Mormon father of six and a conservative influencer. And both the media and attendees commented on the lack of women in attendance and few women speakers.
“It was basically inevitable that natalism would be seen as right-wing,” said father-of-four Bryan Caplan, author and speaker at this year’s NatalCon. The reason for that is that natalists disagree with two major left wing issues: environmentalism and feminism. Adding more people is bad for the planet while we can't tell women what to do!
“By being a natalist you are, in effect, raising the status of traditional women and saying, at minimum: If there’s a trade-off between being maximally successful in your job and being a mom, it’s not clear that you should go with maximum success in your career," says Caplan. Indeed, it's the old argument from the 1960s, when feminists derided traditional females as being "trapped" by marriage and children.
Feminsts don't want women to have a choice. If they choose motherhood, they are betraying "The Cause."
Natalism has two major advocates close to Donald Trump.
That NatalCon got a disproportionate amount of media attention this year was also, perhaps, inevitable. Since the election, it’s become MAGA-coded, partly thanks to President Trump’s special adviser, father-of-at-least-14 Elon Musk. He has frequently—and as recently as this past Tuesday—voiced the opinion that “low birth rates will end civilization.”
Natalism has also been on the mind of Vice President J.D. Vance. In January he declared, “I want more babies in America”—at the annual March for Life rally. This didn’t go down well with the left. Though his boss has moderated the Republican Party’s stance on abortion, pro-choice Democrats still interpreted this as Vance drawing a direct link between encouraging women to have babies and eroding their “reproductive freedom.”
It’s not surprising, therefore, that NatalCon has been viewed by liberal media outlets as a far-right cesspool. The headline New York magazine gave to their report on the 2025 conference this week effectively summed up the left’s stance: “Pronatalism Isn’t a Solution, It’s a Problem.”
“Many young women are postponing or opting out of motherhood because they feel that they’ve sacrificed so much already for this career they’ve built, or this life they’ve created, and they’ve been given the message, ‘You’ll throw it all away if you have a child,’ ” said Emma Brizius, 37, an attendee of Natalcon from Dallas.
“I think we should just build a society that doesn’t make women have to choose so much," she added.
Since only women do the childbearing, that might be an unrealistic wish. Men can and should help their mates all they can as far as helping in childrearing. But as far as bearing a child, carrying them to term, and birthing them, only women are able to do that.
That means that some burdens will always fall disproportionately on women no matter how "fair" or "just" society can be.
A low rate birth is a sign of a successful society. It's also a sign of a selfish society. A low birth rate is also the death knell of society and is one of the conundrums that America and the rest of the developed world must face.
