Democratic Missouri Rep. Cori Bush riled up her online critics on Thursday when she referred to women as “birthing people” during a congressional hearing.
The “squad” member was heavily ridiculed after she publicly refrained from using the word “women” during a Democratic oversight committee hearing where she recounted her personal experience with difficult pregnancies to raise awareness of the rising maternal death rate among Black expectant mothers.
CORI BUSH PRAISES ST. LOUIS’ ‘HISTORIC’ VOTE TO ‘DEFUND’ POLICE
Bush shared a video of the hearing to her companies page with the caption, “Every day, Black birthing people and our babies die because our doctors don’t believe our pain. My children almost became a statistic. I almost became a statistic. I testified about my experience @OversightDems today. Hear us. Believe us. Because for so long, nobody has.”
The remark set off a fierce reaction on social media. Critics chastised Bush for reducing women to a “function” with her use of the term.
“This is s—,” Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney wrote. “They’re called mothers. Calling them “birthing people” is reducing them to a function–making them not human. That’s what’s at the heart of this whole gender ideology. Reduce us to atomized autonomous individuals without a role or connection.”
Daily Wire writer Emily Zanotti called the term “absolutely insulting” and “almost unimaginable.”
“Eff off with that nonsense,” she wrote.
Washington Examiner writer Becket Adams said “referring to Black mothers collectively as “black birthing people” undermines their inherent dignity and humanity, which is the opposite of the congresswoman’s stated goal.”
“Birthing people” – you mean women or moms? ” South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace wrote. “The left is so woke they’re stripping from women the one thing that only we can do. Leave it to libs to botch highlighting an important issue ppl in both parties can agree on by catering to the fringes…”
Former Trump adviser Steve Cortes questioned whether Mother’s Day will get a new title.
“Birthing people.” This upcoming Sunday is no longer Mothers Day, it’s Birthing Peoples’ Day,” he mocked.
Journalist Chad Felix Greene called the term “possibly the most degrading, humiliating, misogynistic phrase to dehumanize women ever invented.”
“Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting in 1872 just so women in 2021 could demote themselves to “birthing people,” Daily Caller report Greg Price agreed.
NARAL, a prominent Pro-Choice nonprofit, defended the term late Thursday, writing alongside Bush’s tweet, “When we talk about birthing people, we’re being inclusive. It’s that simple. 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.”
