Trump’s Medal of Motherhood: Authoritarianism in a Crib

We knew it was only a matter of time.

Donald Trump wants women to get back to having babies. Lots of babies. I’m sure Elon is cheering him on from the sidelines, muttering about collapsing birthrates and whispering sweet nothings about wombs and Western decline.

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You don’t need Hulu to see Gilead play out—it’s happening in real time, dressed up as pro-family policy and pastel nurseries.

Over Easter weekend, The New York Times reported on a set of “pro-family” ideas being cooked up by Trump’s inner circle. Chief among them? A National Medal of Motherhood, awarded to women who give birth to six or more children.

That’s right—a literal medal. No doubt something golden, garish, maybe with Trump’s face on it. Likely made in China.

But don’t get too excited unless your living room already looks like a Duggar reboot. This isn’t for just any parent. It’s a prize for prolific, state-approved reproduction.

“I know we can’t afford it but come on honey—one more and we get a medal.”

Authoritarianism in a Baby Blanket

The concept isn’t new. Authoritarian regimes have long used reproductive policy as a tool of social control, encouraging births among “desirable” populations and discouraging—or outright banning—them for everyone else:

• Ceaușescu’s Romania banned abortion to force childbirth; poor women died from unsafe illegal procedures.

• Putin’s Russia incentivizes ethnic Russian births while marginalizing Chechens and immigrants.

• Post-2021 China promoted Han fertility while subjecting Uyghur women to surveillance and sterilization.

• Fascist Italy rewarded married Italian Christians, excluding the poor and unmarried from benefits.

The pattern is clear: it’s not about children—it’s about control. Shaping the citizenry. Engineering obedience.

So no, a Trump Youth Corps wouldn’t be surprising. Maybe they’ll even hand out bronzer to help the kids match their leader. 

Who Gets to Reproduce?

Let’s stop laughing long enough to get serious. Because in this vision, not all babies are created equal. The only births this movement wants more of are from white, married, Christian families with money. Everyone else? You’re expendable—or worse, suspect.

While they dangle $5,000 “baby bonuses” and motherhood medals like prizes on a dystopian game show, they’re simultaneously dismantling the support systems that make parenting even remotely possible:

• Eliminating Head Start, which serves over 500,000 low-income children

• Slashing maternal and child health programs

• Ending newborn hearing screenings

• Letting the expanded Child Tax Credit expire

• Proposing to cut free school lunches for 20 million kids in high-poverty districts

This isn’t neglect. It’s strategy—cloaked in “pro-family” rhetoric and gospel soundbites, designed to control who gets to parent and how.

While pushing women to have more babies, they’re also working overtime to ban abortion—often with no exceptions. Next up? Birth control, from IUDs to emergency contraception, along with sex education itself.

The goal? A world where you can’t prevent a pregnancy, can’t end one, and can’t afford the child when it arrives—but you might get a medal if you follow the rules.

This isn’t just anti-choice. It’s anti-agency.

It’s a full-spectrum effort to regulate women’s bodies, punish unwed mothers, and turn reproduction into a political loyalty test. Step outside the mold—too queer, too brown, too poor, too single—and you’re painted as a burden. Or worse, a threat.

Even Marco Rubio tipped the hand back in 2021 when he said child benefits shouldn’t go to jobless parents because “the goal is to reward work, not welfare.”

So let’s get this straight: a struggling single mom doesn’t deserve help—but if she has six kids in a traditional household, she gets a gold star?

This Isn’t Pro-Family. It’s Population Engineering.

This is not policy rooted in compassion. It’s social engineering wrapped in a flag, flanked by a purity test and draped in hypocrisy.

According to data, families earning under $10,000 a year have the highest birthrates. But these are the families facing budget cuts, public shame, and shrinking access to care.

Immigrants. LGBTQ+ parents. Black and brown families. Single mothers. You know—the people actually raising the next generation.

What they’re pushing isn’t pronatalism. It’s performance. A government that celebrates your pregnancy but abandons your child at birth isn’t pro-family—it’s pro-conformity.

This is soft authoritarianism, one medal at a time.

You don’t build a sustainable society by slapping a ribbon on a uterus and walking away. You build it by offering food, housing, healthcare, childcare—and a future worth hoping for.

Until then, this isn’t a baby boom.

It’s a warning shot.