This episode features a critical dissection of a political movement and philosophy that is unfortunately enjoying a global resurgence: pronatalism. Having successfully killed Roe, the Trump administration pursues policies incentivising certain groups to have more children. Many key administration figures—most prominently JD Vance and Elon Musk—are avid promoters of pronatalist worldviews, in which women’s efforts to exert control over their own reproductive capacities are portrayed as threats to “Western civilization” itself. This conversation offer a compelling deconstruction of the antifeminist underpinnings of pronatalism and explicates its historical links to nativism, eugenics, and other forms of racism.
Our interviewer for this episode is Signs Associate Editor Shoshanna Ehrlich, an expert on the legal regulation of reproduction and sexuality in the US and professor emerita of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is joined by Nandita Bajaj and Michele Goodwin. Bajaj is the Executive Director of Population Balance, a US nonprofit that works to inspire narrative, behavioral, and systemic change that shrinks our human impact and elevates the rights and wellbeing of people, animals, and the planet. Her research and advocacy work focuses on addressing the combined impacts of pronatalism and human expansionism on reproductive, ecological, and intergenerational justice. Michele is the Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy and Faculty Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. She is a sought after thought leader and public voice on matters of constitutional law, healthcare, bioethics, and civil liberties; she is also the Executive Producer of Ms. Studios and host of the popular podcast: On The Issues With Michele Goodwin.