The celebration of America’s 250th birthday has begun, inaugurated by a patriotic presentation of the nation’s history at the Washington Monument on New Year’s Eve and followed by a packed calendar of events, including a Triumphal Arch near Arlington National Cemetery and the Great American State Fair planned for Independence Day.
As we commemorate 250 years of America and prepare for 250 more, it’s worth asking ourselves the question: Do we embrace a vibrant future, or do we accept decline? The answer hinges on who you ask. Millions still hold deep faith in our nation’s promise, while others have lost hope. Nowhere is this divide clearer than in one of humanity’s most profound expressions of optimism: the choice to have children.
Welcoming new life into the world is the greatest sign that people have hope for the future and want to make the nation endure long after they are gone. Inversely, chosen childlessness is often a reflection of despair — the result of the pessimistic belief that this world is not worth bringing people into. Without new life, all aspirations for prosperity, innovation, and enduring strength become hollow.
America faces a crisis of despair, but it’s far from universal. Sadly, political ideology has emerged as one of the clearest predictors of that pessimism.
Research from the Institute for Family Studies shows Republican-leaning states consistently have higher fertility rates than Democratic ones. The ten states with the highest rates are all red, while the lowest are all blue. At the same time, between 2021 and 2022, 180,000 more families migrated from blue to red states than the reverse.
Whether it’s that Republicans want children or that those who want children tend to appreciate life in red America, there is a clear correlation between right-wing politics and higher fertility rates.
Alternatively, left-wing pessimism about America and the future appears to depress the desire for children. Perhaps no ideology is more inimical to family formation than climate change alarmism.
Groups such as BirthStrike urge young people to forgo parenthood until sweeping policy changes occur to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) questioned whether it was ethical to have children given environmental emergencies ahead. Likewise, a 2022 ABC News/Ipsos poll found that 23% of public adults aged 18-45 have reconsidered having biological children due to climate alarmism. And just this month, a mother of two wrote to the Guardian that she chose to abort her third child due to anxiety about the planet’s future.
These are not isolated examples. Analysts at Morgan Stanley warned that climate alarmism was accelerating fertility declines faster than any prior trend. The data underscore the urgency: CDC figures show the U.S. fertility rate reached a record low of about 1.6 children per woman in 2024, well below replacement level. Besides leading to a shrinking workforce, strained entitlement programs, and diminished U.S. influence abroad, climate pessimism and its attendant childlessness risks creating an increasingly lonely and unhappy national community.
But despair is not inevitable, and evidence points to hope. Among U.S.-born mothers, there was a clear “baby bump” in 2021, the first reversal in declining fertility since the Great Recession and a sign that even amid a global catastrophe, many couples still chose to invest in the long-term future of America.
Other encouraging signs abound. From 2002 to 2023, the share of babies born to college-educated women rose nearly 40%, showing educated people can and do choose optimism. Influential figures such as Vice President JD Vance are outspokenly pronatalist, declaring, “I want more babies in the United States of America.” And the Trump administration has embraced pro-family policies, from increased child tax credits to directing its Department of Transportation to prioritize communities with higher marriage and birth rates.
Yet as the U.S. celebrates its semiquincentennial and looks ahead to another quarter-millennium of progress and achievement, we can’t accept a nation where half are hopeful, and half are in despair. We must reject doomerism and give people hope to have the growing families nearly all say they want.
Part of this will require rejecting climate alarmism, reassuring young people that dire predictions of global catastrophe have never panned out, that innovations can reduce emissions where global quotas and U.N. summits failed, and that to help the planet, we must be willing to raise the children who care about our common home.
But it will also require urging the public to root their hope in more than contemporary politics. Data from Gallup suggest that national pride among Democrats fluctuates based on whether “their people” are in office, whereas Republicans maintain a steady dose of positivity. Those basing their decision to have children on who is in the White House should instead put more faith in the nation that has endured over centuries, even as presidents have come and gone.
So, as we celebrate 250 years of resilience and greatness, we should welcome even more children into the world with hope for the next 250 years to come.
Clare Ath (@clareanneath) is the co-founder and executive director of Vita et Terra, a conservative Catholic environmental nonprofit organization rooted in anti-abortion values that champions care for creation.