Project 2025 and Pronatalism: How Trump’s Allies Are Pushing a Far-Right Family Agenda

You may have heard whispers of it online, nestled between viral videos of “trad wives” baking pies, headlines featuring billionaires warning of a population collapse, or in social media rants shaming women for choosing careers over kids. These are not just instances of anti-feminist backlash—it’s part of a growing movement known as pronatalism, and it’s gaining traction in the highest levels of government. 

As policies inspired by this movement begin to appear in national budgets and right-wing playbooks like Project 2025, it’s important that we’re cutting through the bullshit and asking who these so-called “pro-baby” policies are really for. Beneath shiny medals for moms and $1,000 baby bonuses is a calculated effort to control women’s bodies, restrict reproductive freedom, and prop up a narrow, exclusionary vision of family. 

What Is Pronatalism?  

Pronatalism is the belief that our society, including our government, has a duty to encourage people to have more children. The modern movement is borne out of fears by famed capitalists, like Elon Musk, who are concerned that declining birth rates will cause our economy to collapse (the evidence does not support this). 

What they won’t tell you—at least not to your face—is that this movement is not really about declining birth rates. It’s about power and which people have it. 

Most pronatalists are primarily concerned with increasing birth rates for certain groups, namely those who are white, conservative, and straight. It’s why you may hear prominent pronatalists talking about “declining genetic quality” in the United States, or the importance of engineering “good quality children.” Both of these ugly sentiments are deeply entrenched in white nationalism and the racist fake science of eugenics.  

White House aides, along with prominent pronatalists outside the administration, have been reportedly looking at ways to encourage women to have more children. These include motherhood medals, government funded infertility centers, and “baby bonuses,” which were included as part of the Republican Budget Bill in the form of $1,000 “Trump Accounts” for newborns.  

Here’s Why Pronatalist Policies Are So Dangerous—Especially Right Now  

The administration would have you believe that its pronatalist policies are about “uplifting American families.” But we’re not fooled. That’s because their real priorities, which are far from pro-family, can be found in their Project 2025 agenda. 

Project 2025 is a policy playbook, created by the conservative Heritage Foundation (which is aligned with the pronatalist movement) that seeks to punish any American who doesn’t fit into conservatives’ outdated idea of a “traditional” family. 

So, while the administration may support $1,000 baby bonuses to newborns, they also support restricting access to birth control, rolling back gender protections in the workplace, and have already made historic cuts to health care and food assistance that low- to middle-class families rely on.   

Simply put—the pronatalist agenda is in scary alignment with the Trump administration’s Project 2025 goals, which seek to use all levers and powers of government to restrict women’s autonomy and equality, as well as wrestle power, legal protections, and government support away from anyone who is not rich, white, and Christian.  

What Being “Pro-Baby” Really Means  

At the Law Center, we want women to have as many kids as they want. This means ensuring that women can control their own futures and have the support that they need to follow their dreams—be that in the workplace or in the home.  

While pronatalists claim to be pro-baby, their agenda is anything but. Controlling women is not the same thing as supporting women.  

To read more about the pronatalist movement, and what a real pro-family agenda looks like, click here.  

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