The polemics that accompanied the launch of Fertility Day by the Italian Ministry of Health in 2016 call for a historical reflection on the nexus between health policies, demographic questions, and gender roles that characterize the Italian public debate on the theme of reproduction. In the first half of the twentieth century, interest in the new key term ‘eugenics’ revealed itself in function of the definition of its own role in new national institutions on the part of intellectuals from a medical/scientific background.