Moral panics thrive where uncertainty meets ideology [1]. The recent anxiety over declining birthrates is a perfect example. On the surface, it sounds practical — a call to strengthen families, have more children, and secure the nation’s future. But beneath that language lies fear: fear that the culture is changing, that familiar hierarchies are shifting, and that the advantages once taken for granted by some are beginning to slip away.

In 19th-century America, Senator Thomas Hart Benton claimed the white race was fulfilling a “divine command to subdue and replenish the earth” by replacing the “savage” with the “Christian” and the “red squaws” with the “white matrons” [2].

That language may sound archaic, but the logic behind it persists. Then, as now, women’s bodies were seen as instruments of a larger national or moral project — a way to secure the future by shaping who belongs in it.

When anxiety meets ideology, good intentions can easily be steered toward control — not in obvious ways, but through “concern” about what kind of woman is “responsible,” what kind of family is “ideal,” and whose futures are most worth investing in. Wrapped in the language of protection, economic stability, and family values, these narratives offer reassurance while subtly narrowing the paths available to others — especially women and those living at the margins.

Now, a renewed anxiety has entered the conversation: declining birthrates. It sounds harmless, even patriotic, to say we need to “strengthen families” or “encourage motherhood.” But before we join that chorus, it’s worth asking who benefits from that fear. Birth-rate panic has long been used to rally populations around nationalist goals — to grow “our” numbers, protect “our” way of life, and secure “our” dominance. Historically, those appeals were aimed at white women. And while no one is saying that out loud today, the undertones remain: the concern isn’t that humanity will stop having children, but that certain kinds of families will.

One striking example of how these anxieties translate into policy: according to recent reporting, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security are planning to build migrant-detention centers with capacities of up to 10,000 people each, under a project reportedly costing about $10 billion [3]. On the surface, this is introduced as “law and order” or “immigration enforcement,” but beneath the rhetoric lies a fear tied to declining birthrate anxiety: that the social order is shifting, that “others” (non-white, non-citizen) are increasing, and that stability depends on increasing control over who is allowed to enter, stay, and belong.

Most people support secure borders and safe communities; that instinct for order and safety is natural. But when fear starts shaping who we see as a threat, even good motives can slide into authoritarianism and force. This highlights that the stakes go beyond family formation or cultural decline. They involve who gets to belong, whose bodies are subject to governance, and how national identity is constructed.

History offers a sobering reminder of how quickly moral conviction can be turned into control. When fear and ideology join forces, the urge to “protect” society often targets women’s bodies first. Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer coined the “Mississippi Appendectomy” — the practice of sterilizing poor Black women without their knowledge [4]. Hamer herself went into a hospital for minor surgery and was sterilized without her consent. In the decades that followed, thousands of women — most of them poor and disproportionately women of color — were sterilized in the name of public health and social order. As Dorothy Roberts notes in Killing the Black Body, “During the 1970s sterilization became the most rapidly growing form of birth control in the United States… teaching hospitals performed unnecessary hysterectomies on poor Black women as practice for their medical residents” [5]. These acts were justified as moral, even merciful — saving society from “undesirable births.” That language may sound shocking, but it’s part of the same logic that surfaces whenever nations panic about shifting demographics.

In 1970s Romania, for instance, the government criminalized abortion and contraception, effectively forcing women into pregnancy to raise the nation’s birthrate. Police and workplace inspectors kept lists of fertile women and conducted surprise examinations to ensure compliance [6]. What began as a “pro-family” campaign became a machinery of force — one that filled orphanages and cost countless women their lives. The details differ, but the pattern is constant: when fear about the future meets ideology about who should reproduce, women’s autonomy is the first casualty.

When politicians talk about medals for mothers or cash bonuses for having babies, it can sound like gratitude for women’s sacrifices. But rewards like that aren’t about valuing mothers — they’re about recruiting them. They trade on women’s love of family to serve a political agenda that ultimately limits women’s choices.

It’s possible to cherish motherhood and still see when it’s being weaponized.

References

[1] Cohen, S. (2011). Folk devils and moral panics. Routledge.

Goode, E., & Ben-Yehuda, N. (2010). Moral panics: The social construction of deviance. John Wiley & Sons.

[2] Takaki, R. (2012). A different mirror: A history of multicultural America (Revised edition). eBookIt. com. p. 191.

[3] Marchant, B. (2025). CNN: Immigration detention center to be built in Utah with expected capacity for 10,000. Salt Lake Tribune. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/10/25/cnn-trump-enlisting-us-navy-build/?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot&fbclid=IwY2xjawNvO7RleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHuOL10CycVtMZ1PCxk7y-F7MP3PHtTo2zFvLa8-Dq7EkpqDeAJgTqbk18Y19_aem_H-YFslg8cKeV18ZVRQAsnw

[4] Gilroy, P. (2018). The Mississippi Appendectomy. Invisible Visits: Black Middle-Class Women in the American Healthcare System, 93.

[5] Roberts, D. (2014). Killing the black body: Race, reproduction, and the meaning of liberty. Vintage.

[6] Kligman, G. (2023). The politics of duplicity: Controlling reproduction in Ceausescu’s Romania. Univ of California Press.