Jennifer Aniston, Kamala Harris and women across America are getting really sick of the GOP’s bizarre, misogynistic insults.
In the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, Democrats have quickly united behind his vice president. In one day, Harris raised a record-breaking $81 million, and more than 28,000 people signed up to volunteer for her campaign. By Monday evening she had secured enough delegates to become the de facto Democratic nominee.
Across the aisle, the Republican Party is scrambling to pivot a presidential campaign that was focused heavily on Biden and his age. Republican nominee Donald Trump (and his team) have spent a lot of time on social media platform Truth Social trying out numerous “names” for and various attacks against his likely opponent, including “Lying’ Kamala.” Conservatives have argued Harris’ laugh “turns off voters,” claimed “people don’t view her as Black,” thrown around labels like the “DEI” candidate, and have threatened erroneous legal action to keep Harris off the November ballot.
One of the more ridiculous attacks to emerge against Harris is the claim that she is not “fit” to lead the country because she’s not a biological mom.
But one of the more ridiculous attacks to emerge against Harris is the claim that she is not “fit” to lead the country because she’s not a biological mom. In a recently resurfaced clip of then-Senate candidate JD Vance speaking to Tucker Carlson in 2022, Trump’s newly minted 2024 running mate calls Harris a “childless cat lady” who, like other child-free women, “are miserable at their own lives and the choices they have made, so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” Vance also argued, as have other conservatives, that in order to have a vested interest in America and its future, you have to give birth — a stance that is equal parts insulting and hilariously false.
Vance’s comments have gone understandably viral, with Jennifer Aniston weighing in Wednesday on social media. “All I can say is… Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day,” she wrote on Instagram. “I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.” Aniston has had to deal throughout her entire career with speculation about why she does not have children. In 2022, the “Friends” icon told Allure that she had tried IVF, unsuccessfully. Vance voted against a Senate bill that would have protected IVF.
Aniston’s response highlighted the hypocrisy of Vance’s comments. But they are also cruel.
Aniston’s response highlighted the hypocrisy of Vance’s comments. But they are also cruel. To be clear, Harris is herself the proud mom to two stepchildren — Ella and Cole Emhoff — and has been since she married their father, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, in 2014. Like the 4 in 10 Americans who have at least one step-relative in their family, Harris and her blended family know there are a myriad ways to create, and love, a family — a vaginal or C-section birth is not a requirement.
Conservative pundit Will Chamberlain disagrees.
“Really simple, underdiscussed reason why Kamala Harris shouldn’t be President. No Children,” Chamberlain posted on X. “And no, becoming a step-parent to older teenagers doesn’t count. The concerns of parents and families will always be abstract to her.”
Chamberlain went on to say that he wants “a president with skin in the game, a stake in the future, and the lived experience of raising children.”
Chamberlain and Vance seem to be on the same page. “You have Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” Vance said in his 2022 Carlson interview, ignoring the fact that, like Harris, Buttigieg has two children. “How does that make any sense when we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t have a direct stake in it?”
Far-right political activist and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer — whom Trump has embraced — also made the same argument this week, while simultaneously accusing Harris of terminating past pregnancies (Harris has never said she had an abortion) and pushing the lie that having an abortion causes infertility (it does not, abortion is 14 times safer than childbirth).
Just like with small children throwing tantrums, I understand why some people may think it’s best just to ignore such baseless, asinine attacks. And yet we’ve all seen the damage that can be done when extreme rhetoric goes unchecked. The truth is, fear and concern for the future is one of the many reasons why people are now deciding to prolong or avoid having children altogether. In 2023, 13 studies conducted between 2012 and 2022 involving over 10,000 participants in numerous countries, found that climate change concerns are associated with “less positive attitudes towards reproduction and a desire or intent for fewer children or none at all.” Meanwhile, child-free politicians are among the many leaders working hard to make the future better for the next generation of Americans. They have helped spearhead efforts to help reduce the maternal mortality crisis, expand the child tax credit and universal free lunch, and policies that protect immigrant families. Perhaps this logic makes sense for a political party that prioritizes vengeance, victimhood and selfishness over equality.
Here’s another data point for Vance and co. In 2020, half of all eligible youth voted in the presidential election — an 11-point increase from the previous election in 2016. Did all of these young people have children? Certainly not. And yet they showed up to the polls. Because obviously, a lack of biological offspring does not determine your level of investment in America. Perhaps this logic makes sense for a political party that prioritizes vengeance, victimhood and selfishness over equality. Or maybe this is just another example of Republicans grasping at straws after being out-politicked by an 81-year-old man who (eventually) put party, country and democracy over his ego. Either way, we can be sure Harris will face an onslaught of racist and sexist attacks between now and November, all designed to undermine her as a person, a politician and a parent. But like so many of her fellow moms, the de facto Democratic nominee for president knows how to ignore these childlike tantrums — all the way to the White House.
Danielle Campoamor
Danielle Campoamor is a freelance journalist who has been published in Teen Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, CNN Opinion, Playboy, Newsweek, BuzzFeed and Marie Claire, among others. 
