Baby bonus
Trump seeks ways to reverse U.S. birth-rate crisis
The world has a fertility crisis.
While some fertility decline is expected as economies modernize and medicine increases lifespans and reduces infant deaths, the drop is alarming. Nations aren’t replacing their population. Policy makers worldwide will face hard decisions to sustain entitlement programs.
The U.S. hit its lowest birth rate on record in 2023. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the following: “The birth rate for women ages 20–24 (55.4) reached a record low.” The nation’s total birth rate is 1.61 children per woman in a time period. President Donald Trump is now considering incentives to be “the fertilization president.”
Meanwhile, Euro News reported the following in September 2024:
In 2022, the number of live births in the European Union reached its lowest level since 1960, according to the latest available data.
That year, only 3.88 million babies were born in the EU, marking the first time the figure fell below 4 million.
With women not having enough babies, fertility clinics must aid women struggling to conceive. That’s not always the case, according to an NBC News investigation in March. The fertility-clinic crisis in the Netherlands brings the risk of incest for men and women there.
Fertility clinics underscore America’s careless culture regarding procreation. There are men who are sperm donors and there are women who get IVF to have children because of challenges conceiving, or the selfish desire to raise children as a single mom. The idea of making gametes a commodity is moral and ethical mayhem.
The New York Times reported April 21 the Trump administration is seeking ideas, including a $5,000 bonus to mothers of new babies.
In an AP follow up to the NYT, it reported the following on April 22: “Other proposals involve reserving 30% of scholarships for the Fulbright program for applicants who are married or have children.”
Meanwhile, NYS Gov. Kathy Hochul latched on to a baby bonus too–for women on public assistance. Jimmy Vielkind of the Gothamist reported the following from Hochul’s January State of the State Address:
Hochul’s proposed BABY Benefit would apply to pregnant New Yorkers on public assistance, offering expectant mothers $100 a month while pregnant, and $1,200 upon the births of their children. The governor is also pushing to expand eligibility for existing tax credits to subsidize the cost of child care.
Meanwhile, NYS Sen. Jacob Ashby, R-East Greenbush, proposes a $1,000 fully refundable tax credit for families with newborns, regardless of income.
In a one-party state like NY, Ashby’s plan won’t see the light of day.
President Donald Trump is considering baby bonuses to reverse the nation’s birth-rate crisis. Official portrait/whitehouse.gov via wikimedia
Baby bonuses are social-engineering incentives. Crises at fertility clinics deal real consequences.
The NBC News investigation highlighted a Los Angeles couple relying on IVF because she has stage 4 endometriosis. The report revealed the clinic tossed her 16 embryos because of a “labeling error.”
NBC News correspondent Ellison Barber reported from 2019 and 2024 more than 300 lawsuits nationwide were directed at fertility clinics for embryos, eggs, or sperm lost, destroyed, or swapped. A quarter of all problems stemmed from “human error.”
In 2023, Marissa Calhoun went from considering how many children to have with Steven Casteneda to 16 embryos lost.
“How do you just throw away the chance for human life? Just toss it, like it’s the trash,” Calhoun said.
The U.S. government tracks fertility clinic successes, not mishaps, NBC News reported. The couple is suing that clinic for negligence, which the clinic denies.
In the Netherlands, the fertility-clinic crisis is shocking. The Times of London reported on the scandal in the nation of 17 million people that could compel men and women in relationships to take paternity tests to avoid incest.
Bruno Waterfield reported the following April 18:
Under a new law which came into effect this month, the database revealed the full scale of the fertility industry’s negligence.
Over the past 20 years, at least 85 Dutch men became ‘mass donors’, those whose sperm was used for the conception of more than the permitted 25 children, due to a lack of monitoring and the failure of clinics to follow the rules.
A health professor at Amsterdam’s main teaching hospital said she checked the database to be stunned her two children have 34 half-brothers or half-sisters.
Donors provided sperm in good faith to help people conceive.
‘The mass donor scandal was caused by the clinics and not by the donors,’ said Michiel Aten, a former donor who is a spokesman for Priamos, an organisation that provides support for donors.
Aten said there was documentary evidence that clinics were still breaking the rules, including with donors to major hospitals, and that the government had failed to act.
The fertility crisis won’t be fixed soon, but it’s obvious serious improvements must be made in the U.S. and the Netherlands–and likely other nations–to fertility clinics.
America is long overdue for an adult conversation about the value of children and the ethics of all things involving fertility clinics. This includes a culture:
That values pets more than children.
That accepts hook-up relationships.
That glorifies sexual promiscuity.
That glorifies and incentivizes fatherlessness.
Psalm 127:3 (NASB) states: “Behold, children are a gift of the Lord, The fruit of the womb is a reward.”
