At the anti-abortion March for Life rally in D.C. last year, Vice President J.D. Vance had a clear message.

“So let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vance said to a cheering crowd.

As birth rates fall in the U.S., prominent conservatives such as Vance are encouraging Americans to have more children. They say that’s crucial to maintaining the nation’s workforce, so there will be enough caregivers for an aging population.

Now, those arguments are being cited to pass new state-level restrictions on abortion, including in Wyoming, which recently passed a law to outlaw abortions once there’s a “detectable fetal heartbeat.”

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, it is “clinically inaccurate” to describe what can be heard via an ultrasound during very early pregnancy as a heartbeat. Cardiac cells in an embryo may exhibit electrical activity that is detectable, but there are no cardiac valves that could generate the sound that people know as a heartbeat.

The Wyoming law — which has now been temporarily blocked in court — prohibits abortions after cardiac activity can be detected, which is generally around the sixth week of pregnancy.

“We’re sending a message that children are important and that they’re the future,” said Republican state lawmaker and former nurse Evie Brennan.

“Without an up and coming population that grows up here that wants to stay here, then we just become a stagnant or an aging slash dying state,” she added.

Suzanne Bell, a demographer at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said Wyoming’s tactic is unlikely to substantially grow its population.

“Imposing a ban on abortion is not going to transform the trajectory of a state’s fertility pattern,” Bell said.

She added that abortion bans can lead to a short-term population bump. Wyoming’s neighbor, Idaho, saw one after it instituted one of America’s strictest abortion bans in 2023.

“What that works out to in absolute terms is about 240 excess births,” Bell said.

But at the same time, researchers found Idaho was hemorrhaging healthcare workers. It now has 35% fewer OB-GYNs than before their law went into effect.

In Wyoming, population loss has been an issue for decades. Giving a tour to prospective students at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Claire Lane said there’s not a lot of industry here.

“ I feel like a lot of students don’t see a ton of opportunities maybe necessarily in their fields to work here in Wyoming,” said Lane, a college senior with purple-tipped hair.

She said she plans to stick around for graduate school in speech language pathology, but she’ll probably leave the state to find work.

“We do have a super small population, so a lot of students know that they might need to go somewhere else to find a job,” Lane said.

A 2024 Harvard Kennedy School working paper said by the time Wyomingites reach their thirties, nearly two thirds have left — one of the highest rates in the country. It said a lot of young people are leaving for cities, of which Wyoming has few.

“With bigger areas, there comes more unique people and more creative people,” said Aidan Freeman, a second-year music student at the University of Wyoming.

Sitting in the student union building, Freeman said he and his partner hope to move to Fort Collins, Colorado soon.

“Wyoming is very traditionalist in some ways,” Freeman said. “It is kind of a bubble.”

Researchers from Harvard recommended Wyoming invest in its rural areas, making them more economically diverse and investing in a supply of housing for young people.

Brennan said she knows the partial abortion ban, which she helped pass, is not the complete answer to growing Wyoming’s population. She said the pro-life movement also needs to start focusing on more long-term solutions.

“We have to send the message that not only are you important in utero, but you’re also important on day one when you’re born, like outside of utero,” Brennan said. “And I don’t know that the legislature has had good, robust conversations on what that looks like.”

Wyoming Republic state Sen. Evie Brennan

Dreaming Hollow Photography/Dreaming Hollow Photography

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Brennan said she hopes the legislature will evaluate the effects of the six-week abortion ban, but that depends on whether courts let it stand.

Pro-abortion rights groups challenged it soon after it passed. On April 24, a federal district court judge temporarily blocked the law, while litigation continues. That means abortion is once again legal in the state after six weeks.

Proceedings will continue at the district court level, and the judge will weigh in on the constitutionality of the law. That decision could then be appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court. Earlier this year, that court struck down two more sweeping abortion bans in the state.

A Pacific Heights mansion that was once the priciest listing in San Francisco has traded hands as the already-hot spring market continues getting hotter.

The six-bedroom home at 2830 Pacific Avenue was initially listed in 2023 for $35 million before dropping to $27.5 million last spring and ultimately selling last week at that price, the San Francisco Business Times reported. 

The seller was listed in records as Helena Trust, an entity tied to Hennessey Capital President Rajiv Ghatalia. Ghatalia bought the property in 2010 for nearly $8.4 million. The buyer is an LLC dubbed Almost Heaven, linked in state business records to the address of San Francisco-based financial services firm Andersen, though the buyer’s identity is unknown. Ghatalia and his wife are downsizing after their children moved out, according to the Business Times. 

The Georgian Colonial home was built in 1910 and spans roughly 9,400 square feet. A 2012 renovation brought the home into the 21st century with a seismic retrofit, updated systems and a 1,500-bottle wine cellar. The home also has one of the first residential elevators in the city. 

The sale arrives as fresh trophy listings continue to hit the market this spring. Homes priced above $5 million are seeing increased competition, driven in part by tech wealth and limited inventory in the city, which industry observers view as a symptom of the artificial intelligence boom as deep-pocketed buyers in the tech industry move into town. That surge in demand at the higher end of the market has led to a so-called mansion shortage, especially in tony neighborhoods like Pacific Heights. 

Late last month, a Russian Hill mansion tied to Gap’s founding family hit the market for the first time. That home at 888 Francisco Street is listed for nearly $17.3 million. Also last month, a Pacific Heights property sold for $56 million, representing the priciest sale in the city so far this year, while another Pac Heights home at 2602 Jackson Street hit the market for $22.5 million. It’s not just single-family homes, either. A penthouse sold last month for more than $10 million, the Business Times reported. 

— Chris Malone Méndez

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