Russia’s Health Ministry just issued new guidelines: during routine reproductive health checks, doctors are now supposed to ask women how many children they want. If a woman says “zero,” the recommendation is to refer her to a medical psychologist to help form “positive attitudes toward childbirth.”

In this episode of Based Camp, Simone and Malcolm break down the policy, Russia’s broader pro-natal cultural offensive (including the new ban on childfree propaganda, revived Mother Heroine medals, and “Year of the Family” initiatives), and whether framing voluntary childlessness as a psychological issue worth treating is a smart move or dystopian overreach.

They explore:

* Why this targets culture rather than just throwing money at the problem

* The surprisingly recent history of “aspirational childfree” as a celebrated lifestyle

* How societies throughout history viewed women who didn’t want children

* Whether therapists could actually help shift mindsets (or if the real power is in the framing)

* Bold ideas like no income tax for parents, school choice, and normalizing motherhood again

Provocative, data-rich, and unapologetically pro-family. If you’re tired of the “childfree is empowerment” narrative and want to talk seriously about reversing fertility collapse, this one’s for you.

Episode Transcript

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Malcolm. I’m excited to be speaking with you today because Russia has introduced a new health ministry guideline saying that women who say they don’t want children should be referred for psychological counseling.

And, and Russian officials present this as a prenatal measure to address, you know, their,

Malcolm Collins: and I was like, I heard it and it generally was multi totalitarian things. I don’t like this much. This when I’m like. My gut says yes, I like this. I like framing it as a psychological disorder for a woman to not want children.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And you, you actually like it, it was fairly late at night. You just burst into my room and you were like, Russia’s making like aspirational dinks, go to see therapists. And we both had a good laugh about it, but then I, I went and I looked up what the policy actually does. So basically during reproductive health assessments, doctors have been told.

That they should ask women how many children they want to have, which is a little dystopian. And then if a woman [00:01:00] says that she does not want any children, the guideline says it is recommended or advisable to send her to a medical psychologist, quote, you know, from Russian quote, to form positive attitudes toward childbirth and reports so far.

Describe this as part of clinical guidelines from, from the health ministry and, and not, they’re not like a formal criminal or administrative mandate with explicit penalties for refusing counseling.

So this isn’t some dystopian thing. In fact, I think that this is. This is important for us to discuss and interesting because this is just one of many Russian measures that are targeting. The one thing we say actually matters when it comes to prenatal laws policy, which is culture. To your point that you’re building this cultural precedent around a.

Shifting the way that women contextualize their choices around not having children. And I think that that’s really super interesting. By the way, men are they, they’re not asked equivalent questions.

Malcolm Collins: What? That, that’s where they’re [00:02:00] failing. But I do also like that they frame this as like an explicit problem for women.

Mm-hmm. Like women. What is wrong with you? That you do not want children? All women want children, right? Unless there’s something seriously psychologically wrong with you.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It’s what they’re saying.

Simone Collins: It is 100% what they’re saying. So, so what we’re gonna go over in this podcast is, is we’re, I’m gonna give you a little refresher on Russia’s larger landscape of prenatal culture investment.

Because while they’re doing some of the, the typical things of like, oh, here’s money if you have a child and here’s some limitations on abortions. Again, I think they’re leading somewhat in the cultural initiative. So we’re, we’ll do a quick briefing on that ‘cause they’re actually doing a lot. And we’ll discuss whether or not we think this is actually a smart development.

And then, you know, can, can, for example, psychologists actually be trusted to help women form positive attitudes toward childbirth. And and then kinda look at at how recent, actually the concept of not seeing women as [00:03:00] crazy for wanting to be childless is ‘cause it’s actually. Super. Like it’s a crazy aberration when you look at history.

So anyway it, here’s what Russia is currently doing culturally, aside from the abortion and like money stuff to encourage. More children. So one, the government has revived the symbolic hero, mother medals for women, which I valiantly attempted to get the Trump administration to consider making an executive order around.

Still waiting on that one. I’m ready. Anytime, guys. The

Malcolm Collins: hero medals from other come on.

Simone Collins: Six plus kids, you get a medal. It’s, it costs basically nothing. It can just, you, you don’t even, it could be a Zoom meeting for all the, just

Malcolm Collins: come on. Yes. And then all the press would freak out. It would be great for the administration because of all the press freaking out about it.

Mm-hmm. And people being like, it’s fascist to wanna be a mother.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You and else [00:04:00] is like, wait, but so you reward. People for being war heroes and for contributions to science and for putting, you know, their lives on hold, to move forward the arts or technology or academia. But you don’t reward people for setting their, their lives aside to raise productive citizens.

Excuse me. It’s, it’s so anti-feminist. But anyway. Anyway, I’m just putting it out there guys. Any, any moment now can bring back the, the medal of motherhood. But anyway, Russia at least is on it. But also they’ve done some more, some more extreme, and I mean, man, if you did these in the US it would be insane.

It’s, it’s not, it’s never gonna happen here. We’re not even talking about it here. But what Russia has done is they have anti dink. That’s dual income, no kids propaganda rules. So in November of 2024, and this was their year of the family, like they had this big propaganda year of the family where they’re like, this [00:05:00] is

Malcolm Collins: okay, okay, okay.

Simone Collins: All about traditional values. They basically tried to reframe Russia as like, well, Russians believe in traditional families and traditional values and having children and the rest of the world is debauched and gross. And they actually even got some, and we did an episode on this at one point. They got some families.

To move out to Russia to pursue their traditional values. ‘cause they’re like, yeah, I mean, I guess America’s not the country of traditional values anymore. So Russia even managed to convince a bunch of Americans that they were the, i they’re not

Malcolm Collins: liking it that much.

Simone Collins: I mean, to be determined. They there, what we covered in that episode was one particular like, village that was being developed, still is being developed. If you wanna buy a plot of land within my links to their website they’ll help you build the house, they’ll help you with your paperwork. I mean, it’s a, a full service business. You, you, you can live in this little village with other expats.

And you know. Yeah, there’s Canadians, there’s Americans. It’s a, it’s a whole thing. But anyway in, in [00:06:00] that year of the family the, the Duma passed a law banning propaganda of child free or deliberately childless lifestyles, which covered media, films, and online content. So even if you’re like an influencer, you can’t be like, I’m proudly child free.

I’m a dink. I get to go to bed whenever I want, whatever, you know. And because they’re, they’re seen as basically discouraging people from having children because they are the law introduces administrative fines for individuals, officials, and organizations with possible suspension of activities or even deportation for foreign nationals if they’re judged to promote a child-free ideology.

So, while the traditional family values. Of foreigners who’ve moved to Russia to pursue them. I guess any like dink influencers who are out there living it up or, or getting deported in the media, the, the state promotes an, like, actively promotes like an ideal of heterosexual family with at least two, but preferably three children, and they use state media and [00:07:00] films and education campaigns to normalize this as the approved model.

Which again, I can’t imagine ever happening in the United States. There’s also a much more strict, and this has been around for much longer than the dink ban, an LGBT propaganda ban. So Russia’s, LGBT, and this, there’s like several laws, it’s like a, a constellation of laws. This is, this is like, it’s a whole thing.

In in 2013, Russia adopted a law. So this happened, it started so long ago that banned the propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations to minors. Adding Article 6.21 to the administrative code and framing, LGBT content is harmful to children. And it was used to block pride events and shut down LGBT organizations and fine individuals for public support or visib...