The drastic decline in Norway’s birth rate has given rise to a proposal that is generating intense scientific, social, and bioethical debate. Psychologist Mads Larsen suggests that the state promote what he calls “individualistic reproduction,” a model that would allow women to become mothers without needing a stable partner. The initiative, presented as a response to the demographic winter, reopens fundamental questions about the meaning of family, motherhood, fatherhood, and the ethical limits of public intervention in human procreation.

Norway, considered one of the most advanced nations in gender equality, is facing a serious demographic crisis that has sparked a profound social and ethical debate. In a context where the country’s fertility rate has fallen alarmingly, psychologist Mads Larsen, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, has put forward a radical proposal called “individualistic reproduction.” Published in the prestigious Cambridge academic journal  Politics and the Life Sciences  , the idea seeks to address the declining birth rate, but raises serious ethical, social, and anthropological dilemmas.

The proposal: The end of the traditional couple model?

The premise of Larsen and her colleagues stems from an evolutionary basis: they argue that modern, egalitarian societies have led to a mismatch in human mating. According to the study, women’s economic emancipation and effective birth control have reduced dependence on men as providers, making it more difficult to form long-term couples—a dynamic the authors call the “post-mating fertility trap.”

To counter the threat of a demographic collapse, Larsen suggests that the state invest significant economic resources to enable women to reproduce on their own, without needing a stable partner. This structural plan would include not only access to  assisted reproduction clinics , but also strong state support for creating 24-hour childcare centers and residential complexes (or co-educational environments) specifically designed to provide single mothers with mutual support in raising their children.

Criticism from medicine and bioethics: A plan described as “nonsense”

As expected, this proposal has provoked strong opposition. Dr. Carmen Candela, an endocrinologist and commentator on the  COPE radio network , has described the proposal as a “shock” and warns that it is biologically contradictory at its very foundation. “Individualistic reproduction doesn’t exist; you need a sperm and an egg, you need a man and a woman,” she argues emphatically.

For Candela, the underlying debate is primarily cultural and highlights that “the traditional family is not in vogue.” She criticizes the current trend of designing policies and shifting resources entirely outside the family unit, instead of offering genuine support to men and women who wish to marry and form a traditional family.

From a psychological perspective, Pedro Martínez offers an analytical nuance: he acknowledges that the proposal connects with an undeniable social reality—that of women who, upon reaching their thirties, feel a strong biological desire to be mothers but cannot find male partners who share this same outlook. However, Martínez emphasizes that Larsen himself admits the inherent dangers of his plan, including a serious lack of equality between men and women, as well as the potential discrimination against those who do opt for traditional marriage.

Male marginalization and transhumanist promises

One of the most questionable and stark aspects of the academic article is that it openly acknowledges that promoting single-parent state motherhood would exacerbate the marginalization of men, further reducing their social utility and distancing them from the possibility of forming a family.

Faced with the ethical question of what would happen to men who do wish to be fathers, Larsen’s proposed solutions border on science fiction and have been heavily criticized. The proposal suggests that, in the future (possibly starting in the 2040s), emerging technologies such as artificial wombs and “robotic nannies” could offer men a path to reproductive equality. Candela has not hesitated to dismiss this vision as utter nonsense.

Bioethical assessment

The proposal of “individualistic reproduction” arises as a response to the frustration of seeing that traditional economic incentives for families have failed to reverse the birth rate crisis in Europe. In countries with low fertility rates, this could lead to a dramatic reduction in population with each generation. However, attempting to solve a demographic problem through aggressive social engineering that artificially separates procreation from the biological and affective duality opens up a murky bioethical landscape. The Norwegian debate places us at a crossroads: should nations surrender to the disappearance of the traditional family model by opting for radical interventions, or should they redouble institutional efforts to protect and revitalize the family unit?

Focusing on birth rates while ignoring their natural environment, the family unit, implies depriving human beings of fatherhood, filiation, coexistence and learning within the family and its projection towards social construction.

The expression used by Larsen, “post-mating fertility trap,” to define, according to his delusional interpretation of the problem, that mating, that is, the fertile complementarity of the union of man and woman, is the main obstacle to the recovery of the birth rate, is unacceptable.

Human fertility is linked not only to the ability to procreate, but also to the ability to live together, complementing each other, in a relationship of mutual giving and support, which constitutes the solid foundation for building a meaningful life project in offspring.

Failed experiments in the past have led to the design of “human breeding farms” to breed human beings in service of certain causes, as happened in Nazism.

Bringing a life into the world to correct a statistic, such as the  demographic winter , does not reflect the true meaning of fatherhood and motherhood, which is that a father and mother conceive because they love each other, and they do so to love the children they conceive. This is the true hope for future generations.

Julio Tudela. Cristina Castillo. Bioethics Observatory. Catholic University of Valencia