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

Published

3 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

Alabama Legislature sends 2026 ETF, General Fund budgets to Gov. Kay Ivey

Published

1 day ago

April 30, 2025

Staff Editor

alabamareflector.com – Alander Rocha – 2025-04-30 07:01:00

by Alander Rocha, Alabama Reflector
April 30, 2025

The Alabama Legislature Tuesday gave final approval to the state’s two budgets for the 2026 fiscal year, but not without a battle.

The Alabama Senate passed a $3.7 billion 2026 General Fund budget late Tuesday night on a 30-0 vote after an hours-long slowdown.

HB 186, sponsored by Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Huntsville, would provide a 10% increase ($347 million) over the current budget for the 2026 fiscal year, which starts October 1.

“In many cases, you had a reduction in what your request had been. Everyone of us had that … so we’re in a dichotomy here where we have the largest budget we’ve ever had, and yet, we have the tightest constraints and control that we’ve had in recent memory,” said Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, who chairs the Senate Finance and Taxation General Fund Committee, pointing to Medicaid’s significant budget increase that will bring its budget to over $1 billion.

Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, asked for the 125-page funding bill to be read in its entirety Tuesday afternoon, which delayed the vote by hours. He said after the Senate adjourned that he didn’t want controversial bills to be passed without deliberation, and that he was afraid the Senate would move to adopt a different set of bills to consider.

“[The House] did have a second calendar, and it was going to be the same thing here in terms of the desire to have a second calendar, and I thought that we need to just work on that particular calendar,” Smitherman said after the Senate adjourned.

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The Alabama Medicaid Agency, which provides health insurance for over 1 million Alabamians, nearly all children, elderly citizens and those with disabilities, will get $1.179 billion from the state, a $223.8 million (19%) increase over this year. Ivey requested $1.184 billion in February, about $5 million more than what the House approved.

The Alabama Department of Corrections, which administers the state prisons, will get a $90.1 million increase (11%) to $826.7 million.

The Alabama Department of Human Resources, which provides child and adult protective services, enforces child support payments and administers food and family assistance, will get $148.9 million from the state in 2026, a $4.7 million (3%) increase from the current budget.

The Alabama Department of Mental Health, which provides mental health care services in the state, will get a $4.7 million increase (2%) to $244 million. The Legislature cut the funding from Ivey’s recommendation by $3.7 million.

But senators also appeared to want to send a message to the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, which has drawn mounting criticism from Democratic and Republican senators over low parole rates and what senators consider a lack of responsiveness to their questions about the parole process. The Senate cut the board’s funding from $94.5 million to $90.6 million, a 4.1% decrease.

In addition, Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, added an amendment to make funding for the Board of Pardons & Paroles conditional on the board developing parole release guidelines. The amendment passed on a 27-0 vote.

“What they do, as y’all know, they adopt guidelines. Those are supposed to be updated and revised. They have not done that,” he said.

The board has faced backlash after parole rates declined significantly after 2017, when members granted parole to about 54% of applicants. The rates fell as low as 7% at times, according to an analysis by the ACLU of Alabama in 2023, but rebounded to slightly more than 20% within the past year.

The Senate also passed HB 185, also sponsored by Reynolds, which would appropriate $50 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to the Department of Finance and provide over $12.6 million to the Unified Judicial System.

“This bill is supplemental monies just taking federal money and appropriating it,” Albritton said.

The House concurred with the changes late Tuesday evening, sending the bill to Gov. Kay Ivey.

The Senate also concurred with House changes to SB 112, sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, a nearly $10 billion 2026 Education Trust Fund budget (ETF).

The House changes added $17.6 million to the budget, bringing it to a 6% increase over the 2025 ETF budget. The budget does not contain pay raises for teachers in the 2025-26 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. But it includes a $99.2 million increase for the Public Education Employees’ Health Insurance Plan, as well as funding for workman’s compensation for education employees and paid parental leave.

The Senate also concurred with the ETF supplemental funding bills, including SB 113, also sponsored by Orr, a $524 million 2025 supplemental appropriation for education that passed the House with an amendment changing language to clarify dual enrollment programs funding.

The Senate also concurred with House changes to SB 111, sponsored by Orr, which would appropriate $375 million over three years to implement changes to the state’s school funding formula.

The House added an additional $80 million from the Education Opportunity Reserve Fund to the Creating Hope and Opportunity for Our Students’ Education (CHOOSE) Act Fund, a voucher-like program that gives tax credits for non-public school spending, including private school tuition. The first-year cost estimate will go from $100 million to $180 million, an 80% increase. Over two-thirds of applicants to the program are already in private school or are homeschooled.

The story was updated at 10:30 a.m. to include comment from Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, regarding the procedural delay.

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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: Centrist

The content primarily reports on the legislative proceedings and budget approval in Alabama, focusing on the specifics of the Senate’s actions, including discussions and amendments. The tone is factual, without clear support or opposition to any political party or position. It details the actions of both Republican and Democratic senators, presenting them neutrally. The mention of funding allocations, including increases for Medicaid and the Department of Corrections, appears to be a straightforward report on the outcome of legislative decisions, without showing favor to any side. The coverage adheres to neutral, factual reporting rather than offering an ideological stance.

News from the South - Alabama News Feed

Bail reform bills moving through Alabama Legislature in final days of session

Published

2 days ago

April 29, 2025

Staff Editor

alabamareflector.com – Ralph Chapoco – 2025-04-29 07:01:00

by Ralph Chapoco, Alabama Reflector
April 29, 2025

Two bills that would change Alabama’s bail system are working their way through the Legislature in the waning days of the 2025 session.

The Senate Judiciary Committee hosted a public hearing Wednesday for HB 42, sponsored by Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, which gives judges the authority to allow defendants to pay a portion of their total bond to be released from pretrial detention.

HB 410, sponsored by Rep. Shane Stringer, R-Citronelle, which was approved by the House Judiciary Committee, modifies the composition of the Alabama Professional Bail Bonding Board, expands the exemptions for the fees that bail bond companies must pay the court, increases penalties for bail jumping and adds more regulations for bail bond companies when they operate in another state.

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A message was sent to Stringer Monday seeking comment.

HB 42 has passed the House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The House is scheduled to vote on HB 410 on Tuesday. England’s bill adds three words, “a part of” back into an Alabama statute that were removed when the same Legislature enacted the Alabama Bail Reform Act of 1993.

The removal of the words meant judges in the state could not allow defendants to pay a percentage of their bond to get release from pretrial detention.

“What that translates into is a large amount of money that would normally go to the court system, instead of going to the court system, it goes to a bondsman,” England said to the committee Wednesday.

People can secure their release after an arrest if they pay a bail bond company. The premium, which is typically 10% of the total amount of the bond, is paid to the bail bond company, which then must ensure the individuals go to their court appearances.

The money that people pay when released on a percentage bond would be retained by the court and kept if defendants fail to appear for their court dates.

The Alabama Bail Bond Association has been a vocal opponent of the bill, speaking out against the legislation at a March public hearing and the House Judiciary Committee considered it then and eventually approved the bill a week later.

Victor Howard, vice president of the Alabama Bail Bond Association and bail bond company owner, said that enacting the legislation would reduce accountability for defendants to appear for their court dates.

Chris McNeil, the president of the Alabama Bail Bond Association, suggested Monday in an interview that the rates that people would not appear for court would increase. He also cited records from the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts saying that people who paid cash to be released from pretrial detention in 2022 and 2023 had a failure to appear (FTA) rate of 55%.

“The court just can’t function when you have a failure to appear rate of 55%,” McNeil said Monday. “The bonding companies were averaging about a 14%-15% failure to appear rate. And were able to trim that rate by returning defendants back to court.”

England told the committee that the numbers do not present a fair comparison to percentage bonds.

“The numbers are obviously going to be off because there are more people on smaller offenses with cash bonds versus somebody who is on a large bond with a bondsman,” England said to the committee on Wednesday. “Obviously, there is going to be a higher number of FTAs on smaller cases, traffic tickets, because they all count.”

Jerome Dees, policy director from the Southern Poverty Law Center, supported the legislation.

“The vast majority of times when there was an FTA that was ultimately secured, and the defendant showed up in court, it largely was due to law enforcement bringing that individual in and not the bail bond company,” he said to the committee on Wednesday. “That is not to say that it never happened, but the vast majority of time it was law enforcement bringing that particular individual in.”

McNeil said in an interview Monday he supports HB 410, Stringer’s bill.

“It expands the Alabama Professional Bail Bonding Board by adding a sheriff to the board, adding a layperson, so I think that is very important,” he said.

It also states that any fees that bail bond companies pay to the court that have not been deposited within 90 days and that have an expiration date “shall be deemed uncollected” and will no longer hold the bail bond company responsible for making the payment.

The bill also exempts bail bond companies from fees that the courts or district attorneys have not attempted to collect past one year from the original due date.

HB 410 also adds more conditions such that the bail bond company will not pay a fee, known as forfeiture, to the court when in cases that the defendant fails to appear in court.

McNeil said the bill would cancel that forfeiture payment if someone was not placed in the National Crime Information Center and failed to appear in court, or if the bail bond company brings back a defendant that the jail refuses to accept.

The bill also addresses instances when an individual travels out of state and enhances the penalty for bail jumping, going from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class D felony, punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $7,500 fine.

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The post Bail reform bills moving through Alabama Legislature in final days of session appeared first on alabamareflector.com

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The content focuses on legislative efforts to reform Alabama’s bail system, highlighting a bill sponsored by a Democratic representative aimed at allowing partial bond payments to reduce the financial burden on defendants. It presents arguments from both supporters and opponents, including the bail bond industry’s concerns and civil rights advocacy perspectives. The article leans slightly left by emphasizing criminal justice reform and the perspective of proponents seeking to reduce penal system inequities, yet it maintains a generally balanced tone by including conservative viewpoints and the legislative process details.

News from the South - Alabama News Feed

7-Year-Old Calls 911, Helps Save Family Member's Life | April 28, 2025 | News 19 at 10 p.m.

Published

3 days ago

April 28, 2025

Staff Editor

www.youtube.com – WHNT News 19 – 2025-04-28 23:17:38

SUMMARY: Seven-year-old Maddux Kendrick from New Market showed remarkable bravery by calling 911 when his stepmom, Megan Douglas, who has epilepsy, suffered a seizure on New Year’s Day. While playing video games and watching TV, Maddux noticed Megan fell and was having a seizure. Calmly, he first called Megan’s mother and then 911, providing precise information and helping the operator monitor Megan’s breathing until EMTs arrived. His quick thinking likely saved her life, as she later had another seizure and might have suffered worse alone. Maddux received a Good Samaritan Award for his courage and presence of mind, making his family very proud.