Global fertility rates are falling — and fast. But instead of recognizing the cultural and spiritual poverty that has led so many to reject the gift of children, a new United Nations report claims the real crisis isn’t too few births, but too little reproductive autonomy. For Catholics, the message is clear: the world’s priorities are dangerously inverted.
According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the central issue is that people “are unable to realize their fertility aspirations,” whether that means having more or fewer children than they want. In their joint report with YouGov, titled The Real Fertility Crisis: The Pursuit of Reproductive Agency in a Changing World, UNFPA surveyed over 14,000 adults in 14 countries — from the U.S. and Germany to Nigeria and Indonesia — and found that only 37% of respondents expect to have the number of children they desire. Nearly one-fourth said they were unable to have a child when they wanted, and about 39% cited financial instability, housing limitations, or lack of child care as barriers to growing their families.
But the UNFPA’s solution to the crisis isn’t support for marriage or the family — it’s greater access to abortion, contraception, same-sex adoption, and the dismantling of traditional gender norms. They assert that the key is “reproductive agency, a person’s ability to make free and informed choices about sex, contraception, and starting a family — if, when, and with whom they want.” (UNFPA, 2024)
This ideology is not only deeply flawed, it’s destructive. It treats the human person as an autonomous unit of desire — not as someone made for communion, self-gift, and fruitfulness. The UN’s prescriptions reduce parenthood to a lifestyle choice rather than a vocation and sacred responsibility. And as Catherine Pakaluk, an economics professor at The Catholic University of America, bluntly put it: UNFPA’s conclusions are “laughably pathetic.”
“I don’t think they really have a clue why people aren’t choosing children,” she told CNA. “The difficulty is not controlling your fertility — we know how to do that.” She pointed to Europe, where traditional family structures have been dismantled and birth rates continue to plummet. “People who believe that God loves children … and wants to bless you with children … seem to have a lot more kids,” she said.
In other words, people don’t need more government-funded contraception. They need to rediscover the joy of family, the dignity of motherhood and fatherhood, and the sacredness of life.
According to Rebecca Oas of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), the UNFPA’s definition of human flourishing “involves the redefinition of the family, the micromanagement of care within the home by the state, and legal, government-subsidized access to contraception and abortion.” It’s a radical vision that leaves little room for God, the natural family, or the deeper meaning of sacrifice and vocation.
Instead of confronting the moral and cultural decay that discourages family life — from materialism and careerism to attacks on marriage and the devaluation of children — the UNFPA report warns that even offering tax incentives to families could be coercive. They argue such programs could lead to “constraints on reproductive choice by increasing men’s and women’s vulnerability to coercion from partners, families, or in-laws.”
This is the heart of the problem. The culture that has severed sex from procreation and redefined the family now blames freedom itself for the fertility crisis — and calls for more of the poison that caused it. What’s missing is not “autonomy,” but awe: the reverence for life, the courage to embrace sacrifice, and the faith that children are not burdens but blessings.
As Catholics, we know that human flourishing is not found in avoiding life but in giving it. In a world that has forgotten the joy of children, we must bear witness to the truth: “Be fruitful and multiply” is not a threat to freedom — it is freedom rightly ordered, lived in love.
It’s time to stop letting secular institutions define what a flourishing life looks like. As Pakaluk said, “The place to make a difference is to work on helping people see the value of children.” Not as one option among many, but as one of God’s greatest gifts to the world.
