My mother, who died of breast cancer when I was 18, had me when she was 32. This past Sunday, I turned 33, childless. As I officially fall behind her timeline, with no plans to have kids anytime soon, I look at the landscape of 2026 America and have to ask: Who can blame me?
The decision to start a family is a difficult one. J.D. Vance said on his first day as Vice President that he wants “more babies in America,” but many Americans simply can’t afford to have kids anymore. Perhaps that’s one reason why this administration is offering $5,000 “baby bonuses” just to incentivize birth, while also banning abortion in every way they can. But becoming a mother should be a choice. I was the result of an unplanned pregnancy–and I’m lucky my mom decided to have me and that she turned out to be the best mom ever–but as Miriam Rabkin, MD, MPH, put it: “if you want mom to be happy and healthy, she needs access to contraception so she can choose if and when to get pregnant!” Instead, this administration seems to think that if women won’t elect to have children, they should try paying them, and if that doesn’t work, then they should just force them.
The hypocrisy of the administration’s “pro-life” stance is made plain in the federal budget. While the administration ignores calls for federally mandated paid family leave (a basic standard in almost every other developed nation), it has found $38.3 billion to acquire and retrofit warehouses into massive immigration detention centers. We are told there is no money to support the 40% of American births covered by Medicaid, which faces $1 trillion in proposed cuts, yet there is an endless well of funding for a $170 billion immigration enforcement machine, where pregnant women have been thrown behind bars under terrible conditions.
Since July 2025, the administration has been funneling all pregnant unaccompanied minors—some as young as 13—into a single facility in San Benito, Texas. Internal whistleblowers and journalists have revealed that at least half of these girls are pregnant as a result of rape. Instead of receiving trauma-informed, specialized obstetric care, they are being held in a facility that lacks a single on-site doctor or OB-GYN, located hours away from specialized medical centers. The U.S. already ranks 55th in maternal mortality, the worst among wealthy nations. By sending these girls to Texas, where abortion is banned even when the mother’s life is at risk, the administration is effectively forcing children to carry the pregnancies of their rapists to term in cramped, ill-equipped warehouses, in a state where maternal deaths have spiked by 56%.
The Trump regime’s pro-family rhetoric masks a brutal reality for those actually bearing and raising children. Even outside of detention centers, motherhood in this country is a more harrowing experience than it has been in a long time. For Black mothers, maternal mortality is a catastrophe, with Black women three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women (Trump has moved to cancel NIH grants researching these very disparities). On Mother’s Day, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched Moms.gov, a digital portal promising to make moms healthy again that reads more like an attempt to distract from a lethal policy record. But surely, deporting breastfeeding mothers and ignoring the 16 known miscarriages that occurred in ICE detention just last year is making America neither healthy nor great.
MAHA’s virtue-signaling website pretends to celebrate motherhood while Trump sabotages the care that keeps them and their children alive. Secretary of HHS Kennedy has personally overseen the exclusion of healthy pregnant women from COVID-19 booster recommendations and has convinced expecting mothers to avoid Tylenol by lying to them about its connection to autism. He’s also behind the decisions that have put the U.S. on the verge of losing its 26-year-old measles elimination status. When asked at a Senate committee hearing if he agreed that “89% of children who died from flu were unvaccinated,” Kennedy replied that he didn’t know the exact number. 89% is the exact number. But don’t worry, moms, they made you a website.
Speaking of people misusing their unearned platforms, what was up with Melania’s op-ed in the Washington Post? Most readers have called the First Lady’s words a disgrace; she essentially called for the restoration of a time before feminism, criticizing mothers who prioritize their careers over family. Apparently, the White House thought it was a good idea to have a billionaire’s wife attempt to shame working mothers.
If the Trump regime truly valued mothers, it would invest in their survival, not their detention. It would fund parental leave, not cages. Until then, Moms.gov and Melania’s manifesto are reminders that we have a government that loves to hype up the idea of a mother (as a caretaker, a woman “whose unconditional love steadies us through every season of life,” and a supplementary character), but has total contempt for the person and the reality of the role.
Policy reform that prioritizes moms prioritizes our nation’s future. Moms are on the front lines, raising the next generation, and our country should be supporting women in this critical mission. Instead, this government’s agenda has been more of an assault. We as a community must call out the hypocrisy and not become desensitized to the abuse. We must organize and fight back. We have the numbers—the only people on this planet are mothers and their children. We wouldn’t be here without moms. Let’s pay it forward.
Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.
