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Conservatives want to increase birth rates. These moms are terrified to have more kids. • Alabama Reflector

Published

7 months ago

February 3, 2025

Staff Editor

alabamareflector.com – Kelcie Moseley-Morris – 2025-02-03 18:01:00

Conservatives want to increase birth rates. These moms are terrified to have more kids.

by Kelcie Moseley-Morris, Alabama Reflector
February 3, 2025

Clare Barkley of Ohio always pictured having a second baby. But watching the erosion of reproductive rights and fights over public education and health care, she said the world feels like it’s in upheaval and isn’t sure she wants to roll the dice.

Kristen Witkowski, a North Carolina mom of two, has had several life-threatening complications related to her pregnancies. She might have considered having a third child but is now so terrified of getting pregnant again, she said she wishes she’d had her fallopian tubes tied during her second Cesarean section.

And Brenna Craven Dumas, a mother of two in Arizona who had high-risk pregnancies, wanted to be so sure she didn’t have another, she got her tubes tied and asked her husband to get a vasectomy.

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These women live in states that currently or previously had abortion bans, and cited those policies as part of or the primary reason for their fertility decisions.

The national fertility rate — calculated as the total number of live births per 1,000 women of reproductive age — has declined steadily in the United States over the past decade, from 62.5 in 2013 to 54.5 in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The data shows the decline is present in every state to varying degrees. During the same time frame, rates have fallen steeply in states with abortion bans, including Idaho, where the rate dropped from 71.8 to 57.5, and Arizona, which fell from 66.3 to 54.1.

Those falls in fertility have been top of mind for elected politicians tied to President Donald Trump’s second-term administration. It is a central piece of Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump’s presidency as written by the conservative Heritage Foundation and several anti-abortion organizations.

In a memo issued on Jan. 29 by new U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, programs supported or assisted by transportation funds have been directed to give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average. As a congressman for Wisconsin, Duffy supported and co-sponsored many anti-abortion bills, including a bill to defund Planned Parenthood.

Vice President JD Vance has expressed concern over declining fertility rates for several years, and repeatedly drew attention during the 2024 presidential election for negative comments he made about women without children and society as a whole becoming too detached from the ideal of becoming a parent. He has argued that policies limiting or prohibiting abortion access, which he supports, are not contributing to the rates, and advocates for higher taxes for those who don’t have children and for expanding the child tax credit to help families.

“Our society has failed to recognize the obligation that one generation has to another is a core part of living in a society to begin with,” Vance said at the annual anti-abortion March for Life event in January. “So, let me say very simply: I want more babies in the United States of America.”

Why fertility rates are lower

Phillip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in population science, said birth rates have been declining for centuries as modern culture shifted away from using children as a source of labor.

“So that gets you down from eight children per woman to three or four, and then the question is, what makes you continue to go all the way down to very low numbers?” Cohen said.

In the past two decades, he attributes the decline to positive and negative factors. People have more opportunities to spend their time in other ways, especially women, along with more career and life goals that previously were more difficult or impossible to pursue. Although some women manage both a career and a family, there is often pressure to choose one for financial, societal or individual reasons.

The negative factors that are driving down rates, Cohen said, are the expenses of having children, uncertainty and risk.

“(There is) concern about being able to raise children who are competitive in an increasingly unequal world and who can succeed in a society where the penalty for not succeeding seems to be growing,” Cohen said. “If you’re worried about how your kids are going to turn out, and Americans really are … then you can increase your chances of your children succeeding by having fewer of them.”

That rings true for Katie T. in Alabama. Growing up in Alabama as one of four children, she always thought that she would have a big family — probably five kids.

But with the past few years of political developments, including Trump’s re-election, the economy and five months of being a first-time mom, she has decided one baby is enough.

She and her husband are “one and done” after their son, who was born in August. Throughout her pregnancy, Katie said she was already stressed about living in a state with a near-total abortion ban in case anything went wrong, especially as a pregnant woman close to 35, the age when pregnancies are medically considered higher risk. The closest state with broad abortion access is Virginia, which is about 10 hours away by car.

We are realizing now that daycare is a literal second mortgage payment, and we just can’t afford that.

– Katie T., Alabama resident, on not having a second child

“After I had my baby, I went in for my first checkup to talk about birth control options, and I talked with my husband at length about how I just don’t think (more kids are) in our future anymore,” said Katie T., who asked not to use her last name out of fear of retaliation in her community for her political beliefs.

Not only that, but finances also weighed heavily.

“We are realizing now that daycare is a literal second mortgage payment, and we just can’t afford that,” she said.

Not having a sibling for her son is a disappointment, she said. Her siblings are all older than her, and she describes growing up essentially as an only child, so it was important to her for a long time to have more than one child. But facing a reality of political fights over vaccines and the education system, along with more potential restrictions to reproductive health care, Katie said she had an eight-year birth control implant placed right after the election.

“I hope he will forgive us one day for that,” she said.

‘If something happens, where do we go from here?’

Kiley DeVor, 28, moved from California to Idaho to obtain a degree in physical therapy, and she specializes now in pelvic floor therapy. She and her husband bought a house, thinking they could stay in Idaho for a while, until the U.S. Supreme Court issued the Dobbs decision in June 2022 and Idaho implemented its near-total abortion ban. The state has been at the center of several abortion-related lawsuits in the past two years, including a Supreme Court case in June about whether abortions that are performed during a medical emergency are subject to prosecution under the state law. That matter is still pending in the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

During that time, DeVor said she’s discovered other health issues in addition to endometriosis she’s had for many years that may make conceiving a child more challenging.

“I’m just like, man, it is going to be incredibly difficult for us to get pregnant, so that’s one hurdle, and then if something happens, where do we go from there?” she said. “If we have to use IVF or IUI, if I have to travel out of state and spend another 10 or 20 grand to get the care I need, that’s just not feasible.”

DeVor’s husband started a general contracting business in Idaho that has done well, but she said he doesn’t want to risk starting a family in the state either and would rather wait until they can move somewhere she knows her health care will be protected.

“It’s been an interesting experience of moving to a state where people say, ‘We don’t want big government,’ but at the same time telling people, this is what you can and can’t do,” DeVor said.

Idaho economist doesn’t see worrying trends so far in population movement

Though one recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research said the 13 states with total abortion bans are collectively losing 36,000 residents per quarter based on change of address data from the U.S. Postal Service, it’s unclear how many of those departures are related to politics. According to data from the American Community Survey, nearly 82,000 people moved to Idaho in 2023, while nearly 65,000 moved away, for a net increase of about 16,700 residents.

Jan Roeser, a regional economist at the Idaho Department of Labor, said the state’s population growth has slowed over the past two years, but it had accelerated greatly during the COVID pandemic between 2020 and 2022.

It’s possible that more young people are leaving the state, Roeser said, as seven districts announced or considered school closures in the first half of 2023 because of declining enrollment, according to Idaho Education News. But Idaho is among the eight youngest states in the nation, she said, and one of the leading states for job growth.

“We’d all like to be able to jump up and move just based on our beliefs, but the reality hits that most of us need a job,” Roeser said. “So really, economic opportunity is what I believe allows people to be able to make that final decision, because it’s expensive, and it’s disorienting.”

Until she starts seeing indicators like a spike in layoffs or a decline in enrollment at state universities, Roeser isn’t too concerned about outmigration. But she does worry about the steady decline of fertility rates.

“There’s not much you can do about it, of course, and it takes a long time to reverse once it starts,” she said. “It’s not something you can solve by coming up with public policy.”

Cohen said abortion bans may lead to a small increase in births initially since access is harder to reach, but in the long run, he expects it to contribute more to decreases because it creates uncertainty and fear about pregnancy.

Economically, increasing fertility rates would be a financial drain and potentially hamper growth, he said. That doesn’t mean policies that make it easier to have more children aren’t worth having, but they shouldn’t be done in the interest of increasing births.

“It’s one of the great victories of human development that we allowed people to lower their birth rates,” he said.

‘I’m not going to let them get me down’

For some people, having more children is almost an act of resistance.

Rachel West, a 34-year-old resident of central Texas, had a baby five months ago after a three-year struggle to conceive. She wants at least one more, but knows it might be a stressful experience again because of where she lives. Texas has a near-total abortion ban, along with an attorney general who has attempted to prosecute women who left the state to have an abortion. Cities in Texas have also tried to institute travel bans to prevent women from crossing state lines for abortions.

At the beginning of her pregnancy, West said there were concerns that her embryo was ectopic, when a baby grows in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus. Ectopic pregnancies are not viable and require termination to prevent infection and loss of fertility.

“We did have to think through what that would look like, if we would have to terminate, if we would have trouble finding somebody,” she said. “It was scary, we were just kind of spiraling at home trying to figure out what we would do.”

As someone who struggled to get pregnant the first time, West has also been concerned about efforts to restrict or ban IVF, just in case it becomes an option she has to utilize. But all of the news developments haven’t deterred her from the idea of having another.

“We’ve always wanted to have at least two, maybe three kids, and I would be very frustrated if because of laws in Texas, I had to change my personal life that dramatically,” West said. “It’s almost a prideful thing, where I’m like, I’m not going to let them get me down.”

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Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com.

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News from the South - Alabama News Feed

FBI raids Maryland home of Trump critic John Bolton

Published

2 days ago

August 22, 2025

Staff Editor

alabamareflector.com – Ariana Figueroa – 2025-08-22 13:52:00

by Ariana Figueroa, Alabama Reflector
August 22, 2025

WASHINGTON — FBI agents raided the home and office of former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a one-time adviser to President Donald Trump who has become a frequent critic of the president, to investigate Bolton’s handling of classified documents, according to multiple media reports.

The raid on a former Trump adviser’s house represents an escalation from the Justice Department in targeting critics of Trump, whom he vowed to go after should he return to the White House for a second term.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Trump said he was not briefed on the raid of Bolton’s house in the wealthy suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, and office in Washington, D.C., according to White House pool reports.

But the president noted his longstanding feud with his former adviser.

“I’m not a fan of John Bolton,” Trump said. “He’s a real sort of a low life. He could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”

Earlier this year, the president revoked the security detail for Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019 and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration in 2005 and 2006.

Following his time in the Trump administration, Bolton, who was an important member of the Bush administration’s national security team that favored active military involvement in the Middle East, emerged as a chief Republican foreign policy critic of Trump, authoring a 2020 book that blasted the president and widened the public rift between the two men.

Bolton has not been charged with a crime and is not in custody, according to The Associated Press, which cited a person familiar with the matter.

The first Trump administration launched an investigation into Bolton to probe if he improperly used sensitive information in his book. The current search involves federal officials investigating Bolton’s actions over the last four years, according to the New York Times, which cited a federal law enforcement official.

Trump documents case

Trump himself was prosecuted for mishandling classified documents after the FBI raided his Florida golf course and main residence of Mar-a-Lago in 2022. A federal judge dismissed the resulting criminal charges against Trump.

FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on social media that “NO ONE is above the law,” and that FBI agents were “on mission.”

The FBI declined to comment.

In 2020, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Bolton’s book and tried to block its publication, but were stymied in court.

Patel also wrote a 2023 book where he lists Bolton, along with a dozen other people, as members of the “deep state” who are working against Trump, according to the Times.

The post FBI raids Maryland home of Trump critic John Bolton appeared first on alabamareflector.com

Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This content presents a factual and detailed account of the FBI raid on John Bolton, a former Trump adviser turned critic, and provides context about Bolton’s history with Trump and his actions post-administration. It highlights the conflict between Trump and Bolton, includes direct quotes from Trump that are critical of Bolton, and references investigations into classified documents related to both men. While it covers perspectives from both sides and notes legal outcomes such as dismissed charges, it subtly emphasizes alleged abuse of power and retaliation by the Justice Department against Trump’s critics. This leads to a center-left lean, aiming for critical scrutiny of Trump and his administration while avoiding overtly partisan language.

News from the South - Alabama News Feed

Grants to boost local emergency alert systems in question as public media agency closes

Published

4 days ago

August 20, 2025

Staff Editor

alabamareflector.com – Jennifer Shutt – 2025-08-20 15:01:00

by Jennifer Shutt, Alabama Reflector
August 20, 2025

WASHINGTON — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will no longer administer a grant program that has so far provided millions of dollars to local television and radio stations to upgrade the equipment they use to send out emergency alerts.

The change comes after Republican lawmakers voted last month to defund the corporation, following a request from President Donald Trump to zero out more than $1.1 billion in previously approved spending for the organization.

Congress originally formed the Next Generation Warning System grant program in fiscal 2022 and provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency about $40 million during its first year.

FEMA then gave that money to CPB to reimburse stations for infrastructure and other improvements meant to get emergency alerts sent through the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System to more Americans.

That appears on track to change in the months ahead.

FEMA officials wrote in a notice of funding opportunity for the current fiscal year that the grants will now go directly to state and tribal governments that can then award funding to public broadcasting stations that make improvements to their emergency alert systems.

Democrats and some Republicans have raised concerns that without funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, local stations wouldn’t be able to raise enough funding to remain in operation, potentially leading to holes in the country’s emergency alert system.

‘Rescission consequences’ for local public media

CPB, which plans to cease operations later this year, announced this week that it would no longer be able to administer the grant funding Congress approved during fiscal 2023 and 2024. The corporation had yet to determine which applicants would receive the funding lawmakers provided for those two years.

“CPB has been fully invested in the NGWS program and its mission to protect the American public,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison wrote in a statement. “This is one more example of rescission consequences impacting local public media stations and the communities they serve—in this case, weakening the capacity of local public media stations to support the safety and preparedness of their communities.”

That could potentially leave much of the $136 million in grant funding approved by Congress in limbo.

CPB wrote in a statement that “FEMA should assume responsibility for disbursing the funds as Congress intended, or most of the FY 2022 funding—and all funds from FY 2023 and FY 2024—will go undistributed.

“As a result, critical emergency alerting equipment will not be purchased, leaving communities, especially those in rural and disaster-prone areas, without the upgrades Congress intended.”

A FEMA official, speaking on background, couldn’t say definitively how the agency would handle funding for those three fiscal years.

The White House and Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to requests for comment from States Newsroom on Wednesday about the grant program.

Projects funded so far include:

Mid-South Public Communications Foundation in Cordova, Tennessee, which received $1.657 million to “replace a transmitter and two emergency generators to ensure the rural agricultural communities in Tennessee, Mississippi, and eastern Arkansas receive timely emergency communications.”
Blue Ridge PBS in Roanoke, Virginia, which received $1.122 million to “replace critical broadcast infrastructure that will strengthen their signal in the mountainous region to reach more rural communities with targeted emergency alerts.”
Louisiana Public Broadcasting, which received nearly $2 million to “install transmitters and antennas for KLTL-TV in Lake Charles and KLTM-TV in Monroe and update alerting equipment to enable statewide delivery of alerts and warning messages.”

Congress votes to end public media funds

Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, released a written statement this week calling CPB’s inability to administer the grant program for FEMA “yet another devastating result of the rescission of public media funding.”

She also called on FEMA “to establish a new process for delivering this funding to public broadcasters” and urged “Congress to restore essential direct funding to local stations throughout this country whose communities depend on them for lifesaving public safety services, proven educational resources and essential community connections.”

Trump sent Congress a rescissions request in early June, proposing lawmakers eliminate previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and several foreign aid accounts.

The House voted mostly along party lines to approve the full $9.4 billion proposal later that month. GOP senators, except Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, approved a similar bill in July after removing spending cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. The House voted to clear the revised legislation a few days later, sending the bill to Trump for his signature.

The post Grants to boost local emergency alert systems in question as public media agency closes appeared first on alabamareflector.com

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

This content presents a critical view of the Republican-led defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and highlights concerns from Democrats and some Republicans about the negative impact on local emergency alert systems. It emphasizes the consequences of budget cuts initiated by former President Trump and Republican lawmakers, portraying these actions as harmful to public safety and local media. The overall tone and framing suggest a center-left perspective that supports public broadcasting funding and is critical of conservative fiscal decisions affecting it.

News from the South - Alabama News Feed

U.S. agriculture secretary announces end to subsidies for solar panels on farmland

Published

5 days ago

August 19, 2025

Staff Editor

alabamareflector.com – Sam Stockard – 2025-08-19 15:01:00

by Sam Stockard, Alabama Reflector
August 19, 2025

This story originally appeared on Tennessee Lookout.

U.S. Agriculture officials announced a new initiative Monday to stop subsidies for solar energy panels that take up farmland while supporting cuts in agriculture grants to Tennessee universities.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins introduced the initiative by the Trump administration after a Future Farmers of America breakfast at the State Fairgrounds in Lebanon where she said the federal government will make new grants to bolster Tennessee farming while targeting grants that don’t help farmers’ production.

Rollins criticized the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act and “market distorting incentives” for solar panels, which she said are eliminating Tennessee farmland.

The secretary made the statements even though a study by the nonpartisan Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations found that solar facilities aren’t likely to be the “primary driver” of development on farmland for decades. The study also determined that land can be returned to farming once a solar facility goes out of use.

U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn speaks at a Future Farmers of America breakfast featuring U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Aug. 28, 2025. Standing behind Blackburn is Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and U.S. Rep. John Rose. (John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

Earlier this year, the federal government made dramatic cuts to higher education grants, including eliminating more than $31 million in funding to the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, which houses agricultural research and resources for Tennessee farmers and communities in 95 counties.

Rollins defended the reductions, saying “Those cuts were being made in programs that did not align with the president’s vision of putting farmers first.”

Deputy Secretary Stephen Vaden of Tennessee described the reduction as a “repurposing” and said changes were made in research funding based on whether a grant “helps a farmer in the field make more money.” Projects aimed at “clean energy” or based on “racial criteria” were eliminated, he said.

In addition to stopping solar panel development on farmland, Rollins announced that nearly $89 million will go toward 13 rural development projects in 28 Tennessee counties to “promote partnerships” and infrastructure investments for rural education. The department has distributed nearly $100 million this year to more than 10,000 farmers through the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program, according to Rollins.

Some farmers have said they expect prices to increase because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which are forcing them to pass on higher rates to customers. Rollins said Monday the administration has signed eight new trade agreements expected to boost the nation’s economy.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.

The post U.S. agriculture secretary announces end to subsidies for solar panels on farmland appeared first on alabamareflector.com

Political Bias Rating: Center-Right

The content presents a generally favorable view of policies and officials associated with the Trump administration, emphasizing support for traditional farming interests and criticism of the Biden administration’s approach to solar energy subsidies and grant allocations. While it includes some factual context and opposing data, the framing and focus on defending cuts to higher education grants and promoting rural development align more closely with center-right perspectives that prioritize agricultural production and skepticism of certain clean energy initiatives.