Biden calls mothers “birthing people”

President Joe Biden’s 6-trillion-dollar budget proposal earmarks 200 million for maternal healthcare.

The budget draft allocates 200 million dollars “to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates nationwide”. A part of the budget item is intended to help cities place early childhood development experts in pediatrician offices and create state pregnancy medical home programmes.

These measures are needed as “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.

It is noteworty, however, that the proposal refers to mothers as “birthing people”

Several people have already used the term in a bid to make room for non-binary individuals who do not identify as women but may give birth or wish to give birth. This wording of the budget draft clearly indicates that they will also be entitled to support enacted in law from now on.

Last month, Democratic party politician Cori Bush ironically referred 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).

“Biden’s budget is the first known instance of the term making its way into a policy document at the federal level. The budget’s language, however, is not entirely consistent. Another section touts paid-leave policies for their success in keeping ‘mothers in the workplace.'” the Washington Free Beacon writes.