One of Aesop's fables tells of the fox who taunted the lion about having so few children. "Yes," the lion replies, "but every child is a lion." This dispute is particularly appropriate to Alisa Klaus's comparative account of the early history of maternal and child welfare programs in the United States and France over a thirty-year period.

Her central concerns include the ways in which pronatalism in France and fears of "race suicide" in the United States shaped public and professional intervention in reproduction, and the influence of women's organizations on social policy in two different institutional and political settings.