Ill Conceived

Natalism and The New York Times

Jul 18, 2026 · 1 hr 34 min · 11 segments

As part of the national push by natalists to roll back the clock on gender policy in the United States, recent articles about birth rates have started popping up in the country's paper of record. One…

As part of the national push by natalists to roll back the clock on gender policy in the United States, recent articles about birth rates have started popping up in the country's paper of record. One of those articles, published just last week, was written by someone we've covered quite a bit on the show already. This week, Josh and June check it out alongside four other articles about birth rates in *The New York Times* to get a sense of how the issue is being framed, both in good and bad faith, as a matter of news and public opinion. \*\*\*WANT MORE ILL CONCEIVED? Every other week, we release B-side supplements to the main episodes where we read your e-mail responses and discuss things further. Come check us out at Patreon.com/illconceived!\*\** \*\*\*WE WANT YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE WORLD FAMOUS MAILBAG! Send an email with feedback about this week's episode to [illconceivedpod@gmail.com](mailto:illconceivedpod@gmail.com)\*\** EPISODE ART: The headquarters of *The New York Times* in midtown Manhattan AUDIO CLIPS: - 26:07 – The "Gen Z boss and a mini" TikTok that made a lot of men extremely angry SOURCES: - “The Quest to ‘Make America Fertile Again’ Stalls Under Trump” by Caroline Kitchener (*The New York Times*, January 13, 2026) - “The Birthrate Is Plunging. Why Some Say That’s a Good Thing.” by Sabrina Tavernise and Jeff Adelson *(The New York* *Times*, February 27, 2026) - “Women in Their 20s May Not Be Having Babies, but by 45 Most Probably Will” by Claire Kane Miller (*The New York Times*, April 9, 2026) - “A Conservative Role Model for Ending the Fertility Crisis” by Anenoma Hartocollis *(The New York Times,* July 8, 2026) - “The Population Bust Is Coming Sooner Than Anyone Is Prepared For” By Lyman Stone (*The New York Times*, July 11, 2026) FOLLOW THE SHOW: - Website: illconceivedpodcast.com - Bluesky: ‪@illconceivedpodcast.com - Tumblr: @illconceivedpod FOLLOW JOSH: - Website: joshboerman.com - Bluesky: @bosh.worstpossible.world - Other podcast: The Worst of All Possible Worlds - Stream: Traditional Scrench FOLLOW JUNE: - Bluesky: @junlper.beer - Other podcast: Kill The Computer - Writing: June's Substack ILL CONCEIVED THEME SONG BY: Caleb (Linktree / Bluesky)

As part of the national push by natalists to roll back the clock on gender policy in the United States, recent articles about birth rates have started popping up in the country's paper of record. One…

NYT Piece 1 – ‘Make America Fertile Again’8:46 – 17:18

Josh BoermanHost

8:46

And we talk a little bit on this show about the way that natalism is covered, but I I don't think in recent memory we have seen an example that is this clear and specific of how consent is manufactured.

Josh BoermanHost

9:01

And I'm excited to sort of talk a little bit about these articles and just the New York Times more broadly and how strange of a thing it is.

Josh BoermanHost

9:10

They've written about this topic

June SternbachHost

9:12

a fair amount, I guess, to their credit.

June SternbachHost

9:14

Not really, though, because some of the articles are framed in a very generous perspective to the right wingers and the right wing framing.

June SternbachHost

9:21

Sympathetic, I would say.

June SternbachHost

9:23

Yeah.

Josh BoermanHost

9:23

Yeah.

Josh BoermanHost

9:23

Yeah.

Josh BoermanHost

9:24

Like facially, it is like, oh, well, we're trying to be even handed and fair.

Josh BoermanHost

9:28

And here are some people who disagree with the people we are profiling.

Josh BoermanHost

9:32

But it seems like the point is not to really give the ideology a critical analysis.

Josh BoermanHost

9:41

It's to profile specific people, specific ideas and specific narratives in a way that makes them more palatable to the average New York Times reader.

June SternbachHost

9:50

Absolutely.

June SternbachHost

9:51

Especially like, we'll get to it later in this episode, but there is one profile that I was very unimpressed by.

June SternbachHost

9:57

There were some really funny segments that had me fucking howling.

June SternbachHost

10:02

But it is mostly like, even if these were negative, even if these were framed in a very negative way against the people that they're covering, you know, all of this is exposure for exposure's sake to get their name out there eventually.

June SternbachHost

10:14

Yeah.

June SternbachHost

10:14

Like they know what they're getting into, even if it's not a friendly interview.

Josh BoermanHost

10:17

I'm also excited because we're going to get some ill-conceived all-stars in the mix in this episode, some names that you might well remember if you've been listening to the show for a while.

Josh BoermanHost

10:30

And we've got a full op ed from somebody we profiled in a full episode on the show.

Josh BoermanHost

10:37

We're going to get to that a little bit later.

Josh BoermanHost

10:39

But to get started, I just wanted to talk more broadly about the way that The Times has been profiling this stuff, because I think in a lot of ways it reflects the way that this stuff has been getting covered more broadly.

Josh BoermanHost

10:52

What I did in preparing this episode was I did a quick search for birth rates and pulled up birth rate and natalism.

Josh BoermanHost

10:59

Right.