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May 10, 2026: Pronatalism and Antinatalism
May 10, 2026: Pronatalism and Antinatalism
Bring-Your-Own-Brunch 12:15-1, Open Space Discussion 1-2:30 @ TVUUC
Free child care services provided - Bring your mom!
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Since May's ForUUm takes place on mother's day, it's the perfect opportunity to talk about Pronatalism and Antinatalism!
Discussions of this topic have traditionally involved reproductive freedom and the right to choose when or whether you want to have children. Now that these debates take place on the Internet, the sides have become more extreme, polarized, and politicized.
Extreme pronatalism is often embraced by the far right, who tend to view humanity in terms of genetic hierarchies. They see demographic trends that show their least favorite races having more children, and want to counter this by promoting policies that "encourage" people to have more babies. Elon Musk and Jeffrey Epstein are two notable natalists.
The quiverfull movement is a fundamentalist Christian version of pronatalism. The Duggars from 19 Kids and Counting are a well-known example.
Extreme antinatalism is often a reaction to environmental collapse, economic uncertainty, and general doomerism. Its flavors range from "I want a carefree life without kids" to "people are a plague and the world would be better off if humanity was extinct." Many antinatalists see modern life as producing more suffering than happiness, and make utilitarian arguments that having kids is immoral.
These views that were once relegated to obscurity are now driving national policy. Understanding the motivations and rationales of these groups will help inform your perspective on reproductive freedom, immigration policy, and modern eugenics movements.
Algorithmic bias towards outrageous takes is another factor. People naturally abhor authoritarian views about things as deeply personal as the decision to have kids. Saying that humans should be extinct is not something that should be taken seriously, but too many people react to these posts instead of ignoring them, so they are now within the overton window.
This Fresh Air interview gives you an audio and transcript with an excellent overview of the influence that pronatalism is having on the current regime.
Videos and materials are shared for the purpose of inviting participants into open discussion, and are not endorsed by or representative of TVUUC.
The Natalism Spectrum
The Natalism Spectrum
This short video gives a very quick introduction to the spectrum of extreme pro- and anti-natalist viewpoints. In order from extreme anti to extreme pro:
Efilism - all humans should be killed
Extinctionism - we should stop having babies until we go extinct
Antinatalism - having kids is bad and should be discouraged
Pro-Choice - you should have the choice to end a pregnancy
Pro-Life - you should not have the choice to end a pregnancy
Pronatalism - birth control should be restricted, incentives to have more babies
Lifeism - everyone should be forced to reproduce as much as possible
Immortalism - life should be inescapable, we should be forced to live forever
Billionaire Baby Boom
Billionaire Baby Boom
With global fertility rates in freefall, some Silicon Valley execs like Elon Musk are aiming to halt the decline – by having as many babies as possible. The pronatalism movement, mostly populated by religious conservatives and immigration opponents, is built on the belief that lower fertility rates will lead to economic and political catastrophe. WSJ explains the movement advocating for higher birth rates and why some critics think it may not have the desired outcome.
In the second video, CNN’s Meena Duerson travels to Austin to join roughly 200 'pronatalists' for the second-ever Natal Conference, an event devoted to discussing the world’s declining birth rates and potential solutions. The issue is a hot topic among demographers, economists and Elon Musk.
The third video gives a less sensational, more in-depth look at the pronatalism movement, as one expects from PBS.
Antinatalism Explained
Antinatalism Explained
The pronatalist views are being embraced and promoted by many of the most powerful people in the world. Antinatalists tend to live in the most depressing corners of the Internet, where sad and lonely people encourage each others' most nihilistic and misanthropic tendencies. It is a more philosophical position that presumes life is suffering, or else it imposes greater suffering on other conscious beings.
Antinatalism and doomerism go hand-in-hand. If you believe the world is about to collapse, it doesn't make much sense to create new people who will only suffer in that collapse.
This video gives a good overview of the philosophical origins of antinatalism.
Regulating Birth Rates
Regulating Birth Rates
A good, unbiased view about real-world examples of pronatalist and antinatalist government policies that have been implemented in different parts of the world, such as China's 1-child policy, or Putin's financial bonuses for having children.
Discussion Questions
Discussion Questions
Some questions to help get the conversation going!
Where are you on the spectrum from Efilism to Immortalism?
Does capitalism depend on population growth?
How can we address the problems caused by an aging population without perpetual population growth?
How has the conversation about overpopulation changed in the last 50 years?
How has social media influenced the way we talk about population, reproductive freedom, and family choice issues?
Does a bigger population increase humanity's total problem solving power? Does a growing population increase the chances that we'll solve all of the problems being caused by a growing population?
Is having children a personal right, a social responsibility, or both?
To what extent should individual reproductive choices be influenced by broader societal needs, such as declining birth rates or environmental sustainability?
Does bringing a child into existence require justification? Antinatalists like David Benatar argue that life inevitably involves suffering that the unborn cannot consent to. How do you evaluate this claim — and does the potential for joy and meaning adequately counter it?
Who benefits from pronatalist policies? When governments incentivize childbearing through tax breaks, parental leave, or subsidies, whose interests are really being served — families, economies, or the state — and are those interests always aligned?
How do race, class, and gender shape the pronatalism/antinatalism debate? Historically, pronatalist pressure has been applied unevenly (e.g., encouraging births among some groups while discouraging or coercing others). How does this history affect how we should think about reproductive advocacy today?
Can concern for the environment and a desire to have children be genuinely reconciled? Some argue that choosing not to have children is one of the most impactful climate decisions a person can make. Is this a compelling moral argument, an unfair burden placed on individuals, or something in between?
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