CChris Peterson wasn’t surprised that Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election. But he was surprised that he and his wife so quickly started asking each other, “Should we try to have another baby before the national abortion ban goes into effect?” Or should I give up on having a second child?
Mr. and Mrs. Peterson, who live in North Carolina, are thousands of dollars in debt after their first child was born prematurely and had to be hospitalized for several weeks. They wanted to pay off that debt and wait a few years before having their second child. But now, reproductive rights are once again at risk. President Trump has said he intends to veto a nationwide abortion ban, but his allies are emboldened to push for further restrictions.
Mr. Peterson fears what will happen and that if his wife decides to become pregnant again, he may not be able to get the medical care she needs.
“You should be happy thinking about growing your family,” says Peterson, who is in his late 30s, like his wife. “I don’t have to worry about medical complications or being a single father.”
Peterson isn’t the only American to be reconsidering their plans for having children in the weeks following the U.S. presidential election. According to a statement provided by Planned Parenthood to the Guardian, as of Nov. 6, the number of people booking vasectomy appointments at Family Planning Medical Centers has increased by 1,200%, IUD bookings by 760% and contraceptive implant bookings by 1,200%. It jumped 350%. Traffic to family planning webpages for tubal ligation, vasectomy, and IUDs also increased by more than 1,000% each.
After the election, the Guardian spoke to dozens of people who were reconsidering whether to have children in the United States. Most people cited concerns about the future of reproductive health care, the economy, and the climate when describing their concerns.
Since Trump won, I decided not to have any more children and destroyed any remaining embryos in case the government had some weird idea about them.
“Assuming the next administration withdraws from the Paris Climate Accords and stops supporting the transition to green energy, we are reluctant to bring more children into a world where the ecological future is uncertain.” A 34-year-old mother of one living in the city wrote in the paper. The Guardian has responded to a call for readers to share their views on family planning post-election. Trump withdrew the United States from the historic agreement during his first administration. Doing the same thing again (as President Trump has promised) could “cripple” it, according to the UN Secretary-General.
Another woman from Louisiana wrote: “We have two children and really wanted a third, but I’m not sure if I’ll get enough care if I get pregnant.” “If[I]die, I can’t risk leaving my two children behind because we don’t have proper care here. It feels like a dystopian novel, but we’re still here. Masu.”
These concerns are not necessarily new. In 2023, a Pew Research Center survey found that 47% of U.S. adults ages 18 to 49 said they were unlikely to have children in the future, a sharp increase from 2018, when 37% said the same. is increasing. Among those likely to be childless, 38% said “concern about the state of the world” was a major part of their decision-making. About a quarter cited environmental concerns.
As a disaster relief worker, Catherine regularly sees the effects of the climate crisis up close. “I’m in Washington, D.C. right now, and the flowers are blooming. It’s November. This shouldn’t be happening,” she said in an interview. “I’ve always wanted children, but the choice has taken on a level of despair and anger that I didn’t have two years ago.”
She continued: “Why would we bring a dying child into this world?”
Earlier this year, Duchess Kate was fitted with a copper IUD that can prevent pregnancy for more than 10 years.
Like developed countries around the world, the United States is in the midst of a birthrate slump. In 2023, the U.S. birth rate will fall by 3%, reaching a historic low.
But this decline is not evenly distributed across the political spectrum. After Trump was elected president in 2016, the number of births in Republican-leaning counties rose sharply compared to Democratic-leaning counties. Democrats are now more likely to be childless than Republicans. The Washington Post hypothesizes that this trend is also likely related to a shift to the right among white Protestants from large families.
It’s no wonder that the results of the 2024 election have spurred so much fear and hesitation about having children. Not only are the U.S. political parties moving in different directions when it comes to babies, but the election itself was in many ways a referendum on families and fertility. While Kamala Harris has made support for abortion rights a key pillar of her policy, Donald Trump has promised a “baby boom” and promised to give people a “baby bonus.” Trump’s Vice President-elect, J.D. Vance, has built his political brand on birtherism, a movement that encourages people to have babies for the greater good. Vance has a track record of mocking “childless cat ladies” and sounding the alarm about America’s birth rate.
“We want more babies because they’re good kids,” Vance once said. “And we believe that children are good because we are not sociopaths.”
Ms. M., a Texas mother of three, asked to be called by her initials because she feels stigmatized for voting for Trump, but Trump’s victory has left her feeling stigmatized for voting for Trump. She hopes the economy will improve and she and her husband will be able to afford a fourth child.
We all want to dream of having a family the way we want.
Ruth
“We still have children in daycare centers and other daycare centers, but seeing that the cost has been rising every year since 2020, it’s hard for our family to consider having another baby.” It’s really difficult,” M said. “If there’s a chance that that problem could be alleviated by better economic policy, or that the cost alone could be taken away, whether it’s groceries or utilities or whatever it is, we can It really makes it possible to consider having another child.”
Ms. M, who is against abortion, is confident that she will receive appropriate care even if she miscarries. (Since Roe v. Wade, at least three women have died in Texas after doctors reportedly delayed or provided inappropriate care for miscarriages.) For Ms. M., the climate crisis are more concerned about making sure their children have access to clean and healthy water. Foods without chemicals.
Not everyone who is reconsidering having children has completely ruled out the possibility. For now, N., a 26-year-old from New York, is simply postponing her plans to have a baby until after Trump leaves office. (She asked to be called by her first initial, as she had previously had an abortion.) Ruth, who has a newborn at home and is married to an illegal alien, said that abortions were banned and her husband was deported. You’re afraid of being rejected, but you still want to continue the conversation about what’s next. The second child is alive.
Ruth, who lives in Florida and asked to be identified by her middle name because of her husband’s immigration status, said, “We want to dream of having a family on our own terms and on the way we want.” Ta. “My husband is an immigrant, but we don’t think that should preclude his option to start a family. We have the same right to start a family on our own terms as anyone else. You have the right to build.”
