MAHA Keeps Being Weird as Hell About Fertility

The home page for Moms.gov, the Trump administration’s recently launched website for “new and expecting mothers,” is a trad wife’s dream. Featuring soft pastel graphics and a photo of a young, white, blond woman in a field clutching her pregnant belly, the website offers resources for women of reproductive age such as anti-abortion “pregnancy centers,” as well as a CDC website listing potential workplace hazards for expecting mothers without noting accompanying legal protections for pregnant women.

During a recent maternal health care event, Trump announced a proposal for employers to offer a health care coverage option for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and other fertility treatments. Though the plan would not mandate coverage, Trump declared he had “learned everything” about female reproductive health and that he was “the father of fertility.”

Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. proclaimed that the country was undergoing a fertility crisis that was a “threat to our national economy and our security.” He cited factors such as endocrine disrupting chemicals and pesticides, maligning the “toxic soup that our young women are walking around in.” He also cited a controversial statistic that men in 1970 had “twice the sperm count our teenagers do today,” referring to this as “an existential crisis.”

White House spokesperson Kush Desai told WIRED: “It takes systemic change to turn America’s birth rates around. The Trump administration is leaving no stone unturned to address this challenge.” However, Ashley Wiltshire, a fertility specialist at Columbia University, noted that the research Kennedy's claim is based on has been “debunked” by more contemporary studies showing sperm counts have stayed relatively stable over time.

Mehmet Oz, head of Medicare and Medicaid, added that one in three Americans are “underbabied,” contributing to declining replacement rates. While US fertility rates hit a record low in 2024, experts point out that the birth rate still outpaces the death rate. Critics argue the administration is ignoring actual reasons for lower birth rates—such as skyrocketing housing and healthcare costs—in favor of a pronatalist agenda linked to Project 2025. Uma Iyer of the National Women’s Law Center characterizes these efforts as part of a broader move to undermine women’s autonomy.