President Joe Biden’s $6 trillion budget proposal demands $200 million for maternal health care — but refers to mothers as “birthing people,” adopting progressive parlance designed to ignore gender-based distinctions.
The provision appears in the budget draft’s healthcare spending designations, in a line item that allocates “$200 million to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates nationwide; bolster Maternal Mortality Review Committees; help cities place early childhood development experts in pediatrician offices with a high percentage of Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) patients; implement implicit bias training for healthcare providers, and create state pregnancy medical home programs,” per MedPage.
“The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, with an unacceptably high mortality rate for Black, American Indian/Alaska Native, and other women of color,” the provision reads, explaining that the money will go to mitigate the “high rate of maternal mortality and race-based disparities in outcomes among birthing people.”
The purpose of the change, according to progressives, is to build “inclusiveness,” and make room for nonbinary individuals — who do not identify as either male or female — and transgender men who give birth, and “birthing people” has appeared both in legislation and in speeches on the floor of Congress.
Last month, Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) referred, ironically, to mothers as “birthing people” in a floor speech supporting the MOMMIES Act — a measure also aimed at improving maternal outcomes for minority women. At the time, conservatives pointed out that the term erases women and, specifically, mothers, reducing the monumental process of growing and birthing a human child to a biological function.
Progressives, looking to eliminate gender-based designations disagreed, claiming that the term “mother” was specifically gendered, and that “it’s not just cis-gender women that can get pregnant and give birth,” according to the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).
“When we talk about birthing people, we’re being inclusive. It’s that simple,” the pro-abortion group tweeted in support of Bush’s use of the term “birthing people.” “We use gender-neutral language when talking about pregnancy, because it’s not just cis-gender women that can get pregnant and give birth. Reproductive freedom is for *every* body.”
As the Washington Free Beacon noted, it appears the provision is the first place the term “birthing person” has appeared in a draft piece of legislation authored by the White House, though is the only such appearance of the term.
“Biden’s budget is the first known instance of the term making its way into a policy document at the federal level,” the Free Beacon reported Tuesday. “The budget’s language, however, is not entirely consistent. Another section touts paid-leave policies for their success in keeping ‘mothers in the workplace.'”
Biden’s $6 trillion draft budget appears heavily influenced by abortion-rights organizations. In addition to the gender-neutral terminology, the draft budget also fails to reference the Hyde Amendment, which prevents taxpayer funding of abortion services through Medicaid, Medicare, or healthcare plans for federal employees and members of the military. The Biden budget is the first since 1977 to omit the safeguard.
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