Latest news with #LeonardLopoo
Wall Street Journal
12-05-2025
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
Want Babies? Treat Infertility's Root Causes
In 'How to Make American Babies Again' (op-ed, April 30), Leonard Lopoo promotes a costly, one-size-fits-all solution to declining birth rates (in vitro fertilization) while ignoring a deeper question: Why are so many couples struggling with infertility in the first place? Infertility isn't a standalone disease—it is a symptom of other underlying reproductive health diseases. One in six couples struggles to conceive or carry to term, and in most cases, this stems from four or more reproductive health conditions, such as endometriosis, PCOS or male-factor infertility.
Wall Street Journal
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Irony on the Editorial Pages
I found it ironic that Leonard Lopoo's April 30 op-ed 'How to Make American Babies Again' was next to Starlee Coleman's 'High Court Could Crush Charter Schools,' which described at least one part of our fertility crisis: that our public-school system is a failure, as parents have to pay thousands of dollars to give a child a reasonable and safe education. To further turn the knife, two days later in his op-ed 'You Won't Believe the Tax Breaks for Professors,' Prof. Steven Davidoff Solomon described the education assistance that elite faculty enjoy. If ever we've constructed a disincentive for childbearing, our education system is it. Rebecca Whitworth
Wall Street Journal
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
An American Baby Boom? In This Economy?
A merry-go-round in Williamson, Sept. 25, 2023. Photo: Associated Press President Trump is apparently interested in offering new mothers a $5,000 baby bonus to boost the nation's fertility rate ('How to Make American Babies Again' by Leonard Lopoo, op-ed, April 30). 'Sounds like a good idea to me,' he said at a recent press conference. It isn't. When will our government learn that throwing taxpayers' money and the associated bureaucratic red tape at a problem doesn't solve it? Common sense would suggest that our birthrate is declining because of the cost and stress of raising a child. Our schools are failures; our streets aren't safe; our justice system favors the lawless; deadly drugs have long flowed across our border; the debt continues to grow; and the cost of food, energy, insurance, education and healthcare is alarming.
Wall Street Journal
05-05-2025
- Health
- Wall Street Journal
Can We Spark a Baby Boom?
As a recently married 24-year-old who is expecting his first child, I took particular interest in Leonard Lopoo's op-ed 'How to Make American Babies Again' (April 30). His suggestion that we subsidize IVF to increase the birthrate strikes me as another band-aid solution, much like the 'baby bonuses' he argues against. Why do our solutions to the declining birthrate have to come from such exogenous forces as the federal government and medical insurers? The birthrate would enjoy a noticeable uptick if we ceased thinking about having children in terms of the balance in our bank accounts. We would much sooner reach replacement level if we viewed the procreation and education of offspring with one's spouse as one of the highest privileges and most meaningful endeavors life has to offer—no matter the cost. John Dosen
Boston Globe
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Baby bonuses won't solve the birthrate problem
Some people, Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up But thoughtful demographers and social scientists on both the right and the left have been warning for years that plummeting birthrates will lead to a ' Advertisement Of course, in a free society whether to have kids is a matter of individual choice. As nations grow wealthier, fertility typically declines. Expanding opportunities for women, readily available birth control, more years spent in advanced education, the cost of a higher quality of life — they all have combined to discourage childbearing, in advanced countries especially. The United States, where the fertility rate has fallen to 1.8, has Whether anything can be done to reverse this trajectory is the subject of a lively discussion. The Advertisement The most straightforward proposal so far is to pay a $5,000 'baby bonus' to every American mother who gives birth. 'Sounds like a good idea to me,' No doubt many parents with a newborn would welcome the cash. But more free money from the government is rarely a good idea. For one thing, it is never 'free' — more federal spending means more federal borrowing, which increases the national debt and The idea isn't new. Quite a few other countries already pay bonuses to parents who have children, in most cases with minimal effect. Germany pays ' In Australia, new parents receive the equivalent of Baby bonuses prove 'costly and ineffective' almost everywhere they are tried, wrote Leonard Lopoo, a professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University, in a recent Advertisement Government benefits and incentives may have some impact at the margins, but ultimately the only real strategy for reversing demographic decline is to change cultural norms surrounding marriage and child-rearing. That is the lesson from Israel, the one advanced country where the fertility rate remains far above replacement level, at more than 2.9 children per woman. All the factors that usually lead to falling birthrates are present in Israel: a rising cost of living, pronounced female participation in the workforce, high rates of education, easily accessible birth control, expensive housing. Yet fertility remains incredibly robust — not only among Israel's most traditional and religious communities, but also among the far more numerous Israelis who live modern or secular lifestyles. 'The real secret to Israel's fertility rates appears to be cultural,' Advertisement That isn't the kind of deep-rooted cultural norm that can be bought with a 'baby bonus.' It can only be established through the steady revitalization of civil society, and through the inculcation of a worldview that celebrates family life as a blessing beyond measure. There is no easy fix for making that happen. But if a culture that treasures children can take root in one modern, democratic, and pluralistic society, it can take root in others. Perhaps, in time, even in ours. Jeff Jacoby can be reached at
