RFK Jr. Remarks At IVF Presser Suggest Sinister Policy Trend
RFK Jr.’s Bizarre Remarks At IVF Presser Suggest More Sinister Policy Trend
During a recent White House press conference about lowering IVF costs, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had yet another bizarre tirade claiming that low fertility rates were a national security issue. While Kennedy’s unhinged display is concerning on its own, the remarks actually reflect a fixation on forced pregnancy and pronatalism in the administration.
Framing “low” fertility as a national security issue is a dangerous talking point that can lead to increased weaponization of resources to the detriment of Black families and communities. When white men start crying about low birth rates, it’s always coded language for something more sinister.
The National Women’s Law Center released a report earlier this summer focusing on why the Trump administration’s interest in fertility should not be trusted. Drawing a throughline between Project 2025 and key figures within Trump’s policy circles, the report explained that pronatalists like Trump and Kennedy want women to have more children to preserve the “traditional family.”
“Pronatalism goes beyond simply encouraging people to have children,” reads the report. “At its core, this movement is built on racist, sexist, and anti-immigrant ideologies. It’s not “pro-baby”—it’s pro-certain-kinds-of-babies. Specifically: white babies from heterosexual Christian conservative couples.”
The report also outlined that the support for IVF often has little to do with helping infertile couples start a family, and instead is a tool of bioengineering to create an elite race. Sound familiar?
While it may seem like something ripped from the plot of a popular dystopian show, the Trump administration’s pro-natalism focus disregards the policies, conditions, and needs impacting people.
Basically, be concerned whenever anyone says they have a lot of children and everyone should have more.
Kennedy also rambled about “parents not having children” and unfounded claims about a decline in sperm counts of teenage boys, among other things. It’s also a good time to point out that the crucial matters of public health are in the hands of someone who is not a doctor or scientist and admittedly has a worm in his brain.
In July, NBC News reported medical experts highlighting the lack of studies or data to support Kennedy’s claims. It’s another example of Kennedy and, by extension, the Trump administration amplifying disinformation from the internet and injecting it into legitimate policy discussions. But instead of addressing actual documented challenges facing the American public, Kennedy makes wild claims and is the creepy uncle we don’t let near the kids at the holiday.
If the administration really cared about people’s ability to have children and raise families, it would adopt policies like those outlined by reproductive justice organizations like In Our Own Voice or the National Women’s Law Center. Instead, the American public has been subjected to massive cuts that weakened the social safety net, made things harder for communities and families, and
Another recent analysis from the National Women’s Law Center outlined the challenges of poverty for women and the impact on their families and communities.
“Poverty is a policy choice,” Amy Matsui, vice president of child care and income security at NWLC, said in a statement. “During the pandemic, expanded refundable tax credits, more robust unemployment insurance benefits, and more generous food assistance helped dramatically reduce poverty rates for women and children. We’ve seen what works. It’s past time that lawmakers at every level of government got serious about fixing a broken system where the rich keep getting richer, while leaving millions of women and families behind.”
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