Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament and an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said a new bill would tackle the “ideology of childlessness.”
Russia’s fight against the West and its values has taken aim this week at an “ideology” that the Kremlin and its allies say threatens the country’s very foundations: people not wanting to have children.
Lawmakers have proposed a ban on “propaganda of conscious refusal to bear children,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament and an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said in a post on Telegram on Tuesday.
It is the latest effort by authorities to combat the demographic strain of falling birth rates, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, which the Kremlin says could threaten the country’s long-term outlook. In July, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Russia’s declining birth rate “catastrophic for the future of the nation.”
Does anyone know the strategic reason for right wing authoritarians prioritizing people having kids? Like project 2025 talks about it a bunch, but nothing totally clear cut comes to mind as to why. At least not that feels like it fully justifies how clearly important it is, and that isn’t just me dismissing it as meaningless control or whatever. It feels strategically important
In this case it’s clearly important militarily, but that’s also not likely to help in the present conflict in Ukraine. It’ll take a long time for those kids to grow up, but at least they’d help mitigate population loss
Obsession with control, including control over future generations
Traditional values used to subjugate women. That’s really it. The same reason they hate abortion. Pregnancy and children are traditionally ways to control womem. “Keep em barefoot and pregnant” and so forth.
Putler absolutely would send preteens to Ukraine if he started running out of adults.
They want to grow the population in order to have more workers and consumers. There’s also a white nationalist component where they’re afraid that white people will become a minority and they’ll use this demographic power to agitate for more equality, which is basically oppression to those people (because if it was only about economic growth, they’d be pro migration).
The wealthy are running a massive pyramid scheme and need a constant influx of plebs to support the bottom tiers.
Corporations need consumers (constant growth model). Military needs more living soldiers.
Yeah, I guess that feels like the obvious reason. It just feels like there’s gotta be something more immediate and tangible. Maybe there isn’t though 🤷🏻♂️