By John M. Grondelski.

A recent issue of The Atlantic carried Kristen Brown's report, "The Coming Democratic Baby Bust," which argues that the first Trump Administration was marked by a sharp fall in births in Democratic locales. Brad Wilcox from the Institute of Family Studies (IFS) and the University of Virginia has also just brought out a study speaking of a "Trump bump," offering statistics that during Trump One, Republican counties had higher than expected fertility, Democratic ones lower: "In the past 12 years, the geographic relationship between voting Republican and having more babies has grown by 85 percent." That news, however, comes with this warning: those kids aren't necessarily always being born into stable families. Put plainly, the nexus between wedlock and birthing is also weak in GOP circles.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, perhaps the most compelling one these days is a 40-year-old vice president toting around his three little children. That is in marked contrast to the previous administration, whose head was pushing 80 and whose party is largely made up of people of the same age and post-menopausal women. And note I spoke of Vance's three kids: the last time we remember kids - plural - that young on the White House lawn were Caroline and John-John.

The Atlantic article and IFS data tally with anecdotal reports we've heard in recent years. There's been no dearth of people, including celebrities like Miley Cyrus, announcing they were foregoing reproduction "for the planet." Donald Trump's reelection brought Korea's 4B movement (no dating, no marrying, no having sex, no babies with men) to America's shores, no lack of TikTokers promising four years of celibacy and chastity (probably with as little follow-through as threats to "leave the country," to say nothing of what they mean by such terms).

Of course, it's not just about Trump but also the works and pomps of the Republican agenda. Its most consequential result was the Dobbs decision, undoing the abortion-on-demand-through-birth license of Roe v. Wade. Democrats made "abortion rights" the centerpiece of their 2024 campaign. It was the one thing Kamala Harris managed to be somewhat clear about.

As a campaign issue, abortion-on-demand didn't yield the votes it was supposed to. But that doesn't mean it was devoid of consequences. Arguably, it left behind an even more corrosive effect: no small number of women of childbearing age are convinced that having a baby in the 21st century is an inherently risky, even life-threatening undertaking absent the guarantee of abortion-on-demand throughout pregnancy. Michigan State Representative Laurie Pohutsky (D-Wayne) took to social media to announce her response to the prospect of having a baby under Trump II: sterilization.

This narrative, stoked by Democratic politicians looking to undermine Dobbs, is an egregious example of disinformation. Not misinformation. Disinformation: no reasonable person can believe that having a baby today in America is akin to having one in fifth-century Asia.

But what should be of most concern about all this is an even bigger phenomenon, one that I would call the "politicization of procreation."

The Left constantly invokes Pierre Eliot Trudeau's call back in the 1960s to "get the government out of the nation's bedrooms." But the Left's tendency to see everything through the lens of politics has, in practice, kept the government in bedrooms. It's a latter-day addition to Thomas Mann's adage that "everything is politics."

Sure, the progressives speak of the "ethic of choice" - "regardless of one's views, we should agree that politicians should not decide." That, of course, has always been a red herring: every time politicians or anyone else make choices, they make moral judgments. The problem is not that moral judgments occur; it's that its critics don't like certain judgments.

The politicization of procreation brings the government into the bedroom in a different way: by turning ...