To Give Birth or Not to Give Birth

In her book The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson describes pregnancy as an experience marked by a peculiar duality. On the one hand, it is deeply transformative, bodily alien, sometimes almost incomprehensible to the person undergoing it. On the other hand, pregnancy is one of the most socially accepted — nearly invisible — states one can inhabit. The same paradox applies to parenthood. At a societal level, it appears as an almost self-evident life choice: something statistically expected of most people and silently assumed as a precondition for the survival of the state and the welfare system. Yet for the individual, the decision to become a parent is rarely self-evident. On the contrary, it is often one of the most far-reaching and irreversible decisions a person can make, saturated with hope, anticipation, fear, and anxiety. Having children is simultaneously norm and exception, routine and existential leap.

In a time marked by economic and political uncertainty, fewer and fewer people are taking that leap. Birth rates are falling, and what long appeared stable now looks fragile. In 2024, the Swedish government appointed...