"Birthing People" Displace Mothers

Social and Linguistic Engineers Take Aim at Motherhood

Move over, J.K. Rowling and Matthew Yglesias. Cancel culture has a new target, and it's a big one—mothers.

The Daily Wire and a host of other news sources in the past weeks have picked up on Democrats’ recent attempts to replace the term “mother” with the hideous “birthing people.”

On Thursday, May 6, Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), and Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL), among others, participated in a hearing to examine the African American maternal health crisis. All three of these representatives used the term “birthing people” in exchange for and in addition to the terms “women” and “mother.”

The text on the website for the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which hosted the hearing, described the event as examining “the maternal mortality and morbidity crisis experienced by Black birthing people in America.”

But this is only the most recent of our woke culture’s attempts to eliminate what makes women biologically remarkable. Remember the archaic notion of “breastfeeding”? That’s now “chestfeeding,” what Motherly describes as “the process of feeding a child human milk from a person's chest.” Reports globally indicate that many hospitals have begun encouraging their staff to use this term when assisting mothers in learning to feed their babies.

Is this The Handmaid’s Tale? No, just 2021, when the Left is so intent on being trans-inclusive that even motherhood, that seemingly sacrosanct institution, is being systemically dismantled so as not to offend. As NARAL Pro-Choice America tweeted in defense of Rep. Bush, “When we talk about birthing people, we're being inclusive. . . .Reproductive freedom is for *every* body.”

Except . . . it isn’t. Giving birth is a biologically female act. Sure, there have been shocking headlines that may make it seem otherwise—“The Dad Who Gave Birth”—but the fact is that these are biological women. You need a uterus to have a baby, and so far, even the one successful birth via uterus transplant has been to a woman.

There is perhaps no greater slap in the face to women than to take away what makes us biologically women. There is perhaps no more tragic irony than that the Left, which has for decades been the self-proclaimed champion of women’s rights, is bending over backwards to deny women their very biology. In the process, these female representatives are using language that both reduces women to their reproductive capacity while simultaneously insisting that pregnancy and childbirth is not exclusive to women. Men can now triumph in female sports, or enter women’s bathrooms and changing rooms. Now, woke women are handing over the last thing that marks women as women—the incredible distinction and blessing of being a mother.

Eliminating the sex-divide in the actual birthing process is the last step in trampling the separate and distinct value that mothers and fathers bring to parenthood. Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton has written about the differences between moms and dads in interacting with children. Moms tend to be more soothing, comforting, and calming, and prefer to use toys when playing with children. Dads tend to play more physical—throwing, wrestling, rough-housing. Moms keep kids safe. Dads teach risk-taking. Moms impart social skills and negotiation. Dads give consequences. In short, kids need both, although progressives have been doing their best to deny this reality ever since the consequences of the Sexual Revolution (single parenthood, divorce, etc.) became clear.

Men and women are not the same. We are not all “birthing people.” When Adam sinned, Our Lord gave men and women curses specific to their sex. Man had to work the ground, to labor for his food with the sweat of his brow. And woman? She would have pain in childbirth. And yet, even in this cursed state, men and women were allowed to participate in the creative nature of God, and to find redemption, healing, and even joy in the very things that bring us so much pain. Millennia of men have enjoyed working the ground and satisfaction in bringing forth the fruit of the earth, even as their bodies wore down under the burden. And women, though not relishing labor pains, have found joy and fulfillment in the acts of bearing, nursing, and raising children.

“Birthing people” is a slap in the face, a terrible insult to the richness, the fulness, and the beauty that is motherhood.