Search Results for: motherhood

‘Make Motherhood Great Again’: Pronatalism Finds a Comfortable Home in the Trump Administration

Once dismissed as fringe, pronatalism has moved into the mainstream—finding powerful champions in Trump, Vance and Musk, and gaining policy traction within the administration. Rooted in eugenics, antifeminism, and anti-immigrant sentiment, this ideology casts high birthrates as a patriotic duty and low fertility as a national threat.

Now, federal policies are beginning to reflect this dangerous worldview—one that sees women’s bodies as tools of the state and reproductive freedom as collateral damage.

U.N. Landmark Ruling Condemns Ecuador and Nicaragua for Forcing Girls Into Motherhood

For the first time in its history, the United Nations Human Rights Committee recognized in a Jan. 20 ruling that denying an abortion to a child is not just a denial of choice but an imposition of pregnancy and forced motherhood that irreversibly disrupts their health, well-being and life trajectory.

This landmark decision represents a crucial shift in how the international community addresses the intersection of children’s rights, reproductive rights and gender justice.

Rep. Kamlager-Dove: ‘IVF Allowed Me to Dream of Motherhood’

Last month, the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are children. The result: In vitro fertilization, or IVF, was paused for women across the state.  

Can you imagine the frustration that those women must be feeling? I can.

In Congress, I will continue to fight so that no one else has to go through the devastation that Alabama women are facing right now.  

Motherhood as Unexpected: Stories That Defy the Mold of Being a Mother

Part memoir, part sociological study, (M)otherhood: On the Choices of Being a Woman is an intimate exploration of author Pragya Agarwal’s own experiences as a mother, first unexpectedly and then through the use of a surrogate. She brings forth voices, thoughts and realities often kept behind closed doors.

She highlights the ways in which women are discouraged from understanding and knowing our own bodies and the ways language around pregnancy and fertility remain gendered, biased and patriarchal.

The Supreme Mom Guilt Is Real: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Motherhood

During her historic confirmation hearings, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson saved a “special moment” to address her two daughters directly: “Girls, I know it has not been easy as I have tried to navigate the challenges of juggling my career and motherhood. And I fully admit that I did not always get the balance right.”

Imagine being at the pinnacle of your career, writing a speech that would be heard by millions—but, at the same time, apologizing to your daughters, for whom you wished you’d done more. Like many other working moms, I could imagine just that. But, in many ways, what Jackson was expressing is unique to Black women.

It Was Never About Saving Babies. It Was Always About Motherhood.

amy coney barrett abortion mother

There is perhaps no better (or eerier) reminder of the insidious, underlying idea that women are destined to be mothers than the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to fill RBG’s spot on the Supreme Court.

Barrett is not “the new face of feminism”; this is a repackaged misogyny guised behind a smiling mother—a mother that values this identity so much, she wants to create a world where giving birth is no longer a choice, but a legal mandate.