In case you missed it, China has decided to raise the cost of condoms and other contraceptives by imposing a 13% value-added tax (VAT) to combat declining birth rates. You read that right: instead of making parenthood more affordable, they’re making it more expensive to avoid getting pregnant.

Many conservative influencers built their platforms on autonomy and feminist gains — education, financial independence, career exploration — then pivot to pressuring other women to shrink their lives, limit their ambitions, or pursue early motherhood as a moral imperative. The pattern is consistent: enjoy the freedoms yourself, then discourage the next generation from doing the same.

RFK Jr. recently called America’s declining birth rate a “national security concern.” He went on a disturbing rant about how teenage boys’ sperm counts are supposedly half of that of 65-year-old men (which is biologically implausible), and how girls are supposedly hitting puberty years earlier.

I don’t mean to sound like an alarmist here, but let’s be real for a second: why are we linking “national security," teenage sperm counts, and early puberty in girls? This line of concern doesn’t just sound off — it sounds sinister.