The Fertility Report

White House, West Wing – April 17, 2046

Subterranean Briefing Room C

The air was filtered. The coffee was synthetic. The mood was… muted.

President Mitchell scanned the half-empty room. “Where’s the Surgeon General?”

“Dead, sir,” said Chief of Staff Raynor. “Sepsis. Postnatal. Rural delivery center lost funding. No backup.”

A beat.

Mitchell exhaled through his nose. “Add it to the list.”

He turned to the big screen. The words U.S. POPULATION REPORT – CLASSIFIED blinked in gray. An advisor—young, overcaffeinated, clearly regretting his life choices—cleared his throat.

“Uh… so the good news is, technically, birth rates are up. Slightly.”

“And the bad news?” asked Vice President Chou, eyes like daggers.

“Well, maternal mortality’s at… 47 per 10,000. That’s more than double 2025 levels. Infant survival’s down, too. The Baby Bonus payments kept getting slashed in Congress, so uptake plateaued. And the ‘Motherhood Medal’ program backfired—most of the women who qualified died or couldn’t afford the kids they already had.”

“Immigration?” asked Mitchell.

The advisor twitched.

“There isn’t any,” Raynor said. “Remember? You campaigned on ‘No New Americans.’ We’ve had negative net migration for eleven years.”

“Naturalization numbers?”

“Under a hundred last year. Mostly tech elites. Nobody wants in anymore.”

Silence.

“Okay,” Mitchell said slowly, “but what about the Family Cycle Literacy Initiative? Didn’t we invest a billion in ovulation education?”

“Oh, yes sir,” said the advisor. “People know exactly how not to get pregnant now. That program was extremely effective.”

Someone at the back of the room snorted.

Mitchell rubbed his temples. “Okay. We ban birth control. Mandate pregnancies. Bring back national service for moms. Something.”

“You’ll lose ten more swing states,” Chou muttered. “If we had ten to lose.”

“We outlawed abortion,” Raynor said. “We pushed purity campaigns. We subsidized strollers. We militarized Mother’s Day.”

“And?”

Raynor pulled up the graph.

The line started in 2024 and dropped like a ski slope into hell.

After the meeting, the President walked outside the White House, past the Wall of Honor. It used to be for fallen soldiers.

Now it held names of women who died in childbirth.

It stretched on for nearly a city block.

They’d wanted families. Futures. Security. Healthcare. Support.

Instead, they got lectures on periods and a $5,000 check that bounced if they spent it before the paperwork cleared.

He stopped at one name.

His daughter’s.

And wondered how the richest country on Earth had died of deliberate neglect.

Last week, the Trump administration floated its latest plan to “fix” America’s falling birth rate: a $5,000 “baby bonus,” menstrual cycle education classes, and awarding medals to women who have six or more children. It’s the kind of policy that sounds like a parody until you remember—this isn’t The Onion. It’s the federal government. And they’re dead serious.

We already explored what this could look like two decades from now in the flash fiction piece The Fertility Report—a dystopian White House meeting where maternal death rates have skyrocketed, immigration has vanished, and nobody wants to have children because society made it unbearable.

But that future isn’t just a cautionary tale. It’s a real possibility if we continue down this road.

Here’s how we get there—and how we stop it.

📉 How the Collapse Starts

 1. $5,000 “Baby Bonuses” Don’t Pay the Bills

A one-time payout sounds nice until you do the math. Hospital birth alone can run $15,000+. Add in formula, diapers, and childcare? That $5K is gone before the umbilical cord falls off. Without sustained support, a check is a photo op, not a solution.

2. Menstrual Cycle Classes Are Not Policy

 Teaching women how ovulation works while ignoring the cost of childcare, the absence of paid leave, or the looming risk of dying in childbirth is not “empowering.” It’s paternalistic. It also wildly misdiagnoses the problem: we’re not facing a fertility knowledge crisis—we’re facing a support crisis.

3. Punishing Reproductive Freedom Backfires

 Banning abortion and restricting contraception doesn’t raise birth rates—it just makes pregnancy more dangerous. Data shows that in states with abortion bans, people are delaying or avoiding pregnancy altogether. You can’t shame or scare people into parenthood. You can only make it safe and sustainable.

4. No Immigration = No Backstop

 Immigrants have historically offset declining birth rates. But the administration’s “No New Americans” rhetoric, mass deportations, and proposed changes to naturalization policy are closing that door. If we don’t allow people in—and we don’t help the people already here—population decline becomes inevitable.

5. Maternal Mortality Is Treated Like a Footnote

 The U.S. already has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world. Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth. Yet instead of expanding healthcare access, the administration is slashing it, and funneling funds into PR-worthy gimmicks. Meanwhile, women are literally dying.

🩺 How We Actually Fix It

 You want to raise birth rates? Make parenting viable. Make life livable. Start here:

✅ 1. Universal Paid Family Leave

 Twelve weeks minimum—for everyone. Birthing parent, non-birthing parent, adoptive parent. No one should have to choose between bonding with their child and paying rent.

✅ 2. Affordable Childcare

 Subsidize daycare. Expand pre-K. Pay early childhood educators what they’re worth. When childcare costs more than a mortgage, people have fewer children. This isn’t complicated.

✅ 3. Guaranteed Healthcare, Including Reproductive Care

 Prenatal care, labor and delivery, postpartum checkups. Abortions when needed. IUDs when wanted. Vasectomies when chosen. Reproductive freedom is a pro-family policy.

✅ 4. Stable Housing and a Living Wage

 People delay children because they can’t afford the basics. Fix the housing crisis. Raise the minimum wage. Let people dream again.

✅ 5. Immigration Reform

 Welcoming new Americans doesn’t weaken the country—it strengthens it. We don’t just need babies. We need people. Diverse, brilliant, ambitious people who want to build their lives here.

✅ 6. Climate Action

 No one wants to raise children on a burning planet. Climate anxiety is real. Addressing it isn’t just good policy—it’s good parenting prep.

✊ The Bottom Line

 You don’t boost birth rates by offering medals, bonuses, or period charts. You do it by making society one where people want to have children.

Where moms don’t die.

 Where kids don’t go hungry.

 Where parents aren’t punished for parenting.

 Where families—all kinds of families—are supported, respected, and safe.

Anything less isn’t policy. It’s propaganda.

And we’ve seen where that road leads.