Sorry, but they’re called ‘mothers’ — not ‘birthing people’

Three years ago my wife came to me with a stack of papers and some textbooks. “Can you believe this?” she asked. “They are calling women ‘birthing people.’” She explained that in the curriculum for her certification as a birth doula it was now de rigueur to refer to mothers with this ridiculous-sounding neologism. “It’ll never catch on,” I told her. She disagreed.

My wife was right. When Rep. Cori Bush made headlines last week with a speech and a follow-up tweet about “birthing people,” the Missouri Democrat was not speaking in a vacuum. The pro-abortion group NARAL was there to explain that Bush was simply being “inclusive.” Nor is she the first member of Congress to refer publicly to “birthing people.” The ludicrous phrase is becoming ubiquitous, not just in activist circles but in the medical profession. On the Web site of Harvard Medical School, you can read about how advancing something called “maternal justice” is “essential for all birthing people.” The National Institutes of Health, the New York State Department of Health, the apparently real California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls, the Hawaii Department of Human Services and even the city of Milwaukee all present helpful information about this hitherto-unknown category of human beings. Countless state legislators across the country have introduced bills or resolutions that include the preposterous terminology.