Maga men have babies on the brain. They may not all be interested in changing diapers or hands-on parenting, but they’re very keen on population growth. “[W]e want more babies, to put it very nicely,” Donald Trump said last year.

Trump, who has called himself the “father of IVF” and joked that he will be known as the “fertilization president”, surrounds himself with people who profess a similar fondness for children. Only a few days after being sworn in as vice-president, JD Vance declared he wanted “more babies in the United States of America” and went on to make pronatalist policies a theme of his time in office.

Meanwhile, the administration’s favourite moneyman, Elon Musk, is doing his own part to increase the population. Ashley St Clair, the mother of one of his many offspring, has claimed he once told her he wanted to have “a legion of children before the civil war”. At least one of Musk’s kids has denounced him, so I’m not sure he’s considered that they might not all be fighting on the same side.

While the Trump administration may want a baby boom, it won’t shock you to hear that, when you take a closer look at their particular brand of pronatalism, they don’t actually seem to want “more babies”. What they really want, judging by the way in which pregnant immigrants are being treated, is more of the “right” type of baby.

A Guardian investigation published this week revealed that ICE is arresting a record number of pregnant women and teenagers. These detained women are reportedly not receiving the prenatal healthcare they need and, alarmingly, ICE does not seem to have records of how many of these women have suffered miscarriages.

“ICE recorded 18 miscarriages during the first nine months of the Trump administration,” the Guardian writes. “[B]ut the agency has no data on miscarriages........

© The Guardian