The U.S. fertility rate hit a record low last year because of a toxic stew of economic troubles and the decline of Christianity along with the rise of anti-family leftism. Enter the Natal Conference, dedicated to promoting families — or, as Politico framed it, “The Far Right’s Campaign to Explode the Population.”

Matt Walsh, a Catholic father of six, had thoughts.

There is one ongoing public health crisis that these experts really don’t want to talk about — even though, if it continues for much longer, it will quite literally bring about the end of humanity.

I’m talking about collapsing fertility rates all over the world, which is a problem you really have to put in context if you want to understand how dire things are.

Right now, Russia, China, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Ireland, Switzerland, Greece, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Qatar, the UAE, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, the UK, Germany, and the United States — and many others — have birth rates that are well below replacement level.

The U.S. fertility rate is at its lowest point in nearly a century. What that means is that people aren’t having enough children to sustain the population.

What to do? Walsh explains:

Figuring out the root cause of this problem is more complicated than looking at economic indicators alone. It means analyzing culture, and in particular, taking a close look at prevailing attitudes towards children and families, and trying to change them. That was the main goal of the Natal Conference, which took place at the end of last year in Austin, Texas. Speakers from all over the country gathered to assess what’s gone wrong and how to fix it.

The organizer allowed a Politico reporter to attend and that worked out about as well as you’d expect.

Predictably, Politico published a hit piece that’s so bizarre, and so totally disconnected from the event, that it verges on self-parody.

Here’s how Politico wrote about the conference on Twitter: “The far right is so obsessed with making babies, they just held a whole conference about it.”

Yes, you heard that right. Politico has uncovered the sinister Right-wing plot to have babies and ensure the survival of the human species. They caught us. We are anti-extinction. Much to our shame. …

It’s not hard to see what Politico is getting at. Basically, they’re saying that anyone who wants Western societies to produce children — which is to say, anyone who wants Western societies to continue existing — must be “far Right.”

Walsh then explores what he calls the “anti-natalism movement” and the “depopulation agenda,” which is “being promoted by corporate media.” He also ventures into the effect that easy and exploding access to porn has had on families — or the lack thereof. However, he concludes.

The good news is that this is one of the few problems in our society that pretty much everyone can help solve. It’s maybe the single most solvable crisis in history.

Daily Wire subscribers can read the whole thing here.