The American Civil Liberties Union, which has advocated for more than half a century of reproductive rights, recently tweeted concerns about the precarious state of legal abortion:
“Abortions prohibit disproportionate harm: blacks and other people of color. The LGBTQ community. Immigrants. Young people. Those who work to make ends meet. Disabled. Protecting access to abortion is an urgent issue of racial and economic justice. “
This tweet covers so much and so much and yet neglects to mention an appropriate demographic: women.
This was not an omission, nor was it typical of the language preferred by the ACLU. The language is changing rapidly, even as the Supreme Court appears ready to overturn the constitutional guarantee of abortion rights and progressives face the task of leading the opposition.
From Planned Parenthood through NARAL Pro-Choice America to the American Medical Association to urban and public health departments and younger activists, the word “women” has been much less common in abortion and pregnancy conversations for several years.
Led by allies and transgender activists, a number of medical, governmental and progressive organizations have adopted a gender-neutral language that makes little distinction between women and transgender men, as well as those that completely reject these identities.
This speed of change is obvious: in 2020, NARAL issued a guide for abortion activists, emphasizing that they should talk about “women’s choice”. Two years later, the same guide emphasized the need for “gender-neutral language”.
Last year, the editor of The Lancet, a British medical journal, apologized for the cover, which referred to “bodies with vaginas” and not women.
Today, “pregnant people” and “mothers” have pushed “pregnant women” aside.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a Breastfeeding Care section, the Governor of New York has issued guidelines for partners accompanying “births” during Covid, and city and some public health departments offer advice for people who are pregnant ”. of “breastfeeding”.
The Cleveland Clinic, a well-known non-profit hospital, asked a question on its website: “Who has a vagina?” The American Cancer Society’s website recommends cancer screening for “people with cervical cancer.”
This language reflects the desire of medical professionals to find a language that does not exclude and comfort those who give birth and identify as non-binary and transgender men. No agency appears to collect data on transgender and non-binary pregnancies, but Australia reports that about 0.1% of all births involve transgender men.
T-Grace Atkinson called from his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and sighed. She considers herself a radical feminist for most of her 83 years. She left the National Women’s Organization in the 1960s, when she refused to aggressively push for abortion rights.
She is tired of the battles over gender and language, which she says are fueled by transgender activists and impatient progressives, and no less eagerly opposed by right-wing politicians. It is far from the urgent needs of women, who make up 50.8 percent of the population.
“I want to see material change,” she said. “The deprivation of our reproductive rights will exacerbate the battle. It’s about women and our rights; it’s not a language game. “
Last year, Dr Sarah Dalen wrote an editorial for a British medical journal in which she noted the pressure on clinicians in Britain, where gender issues are no less burdensome, to use phrases like “human milk” instead of “breast milk”. . She warned that they risk losing a larger audience.
“If the aim is to maximize respect for everyone’s self-esteem, it must follow that patients who simply understand themselves as women cannot be expected to ‘tacitly agree with a language in which they do not exist.’ “She wrote, quoting proponents of gender-neutral language.
For those struggling in the trenches of reproductive policy, the surprise is that turning to neutral language is surprising. Louise Melling, ACLU’s deputy director of legal affairs, noted that male pronouns and terms such as “humanity” have recently been considered sufficient to cover all women. Language is a powerful tool, she said, and helps define political consciousness.
“Language evolves and can exclude or include,” Ms. Melling said in an interview. “It’s really important for me to think about pregnant people. The truth is: not only women give birth, not only women seek abortion.
NARAL highlighted this point in a tweet last year, defending the use of “giving birth”: “We use gender-neutral language when we talk about pregnancy, because it’s not just cis sex women who can get pregnant and give birth.
Feminists such as Mrs. Atkinson and writer J. Rowling was outspoken, saying that women have a right to their space, from locker rooms to shelters for domestic violence to prisons, apart from men and transgender women.
Rowe v. Wade
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What is Rowe against Wade? Rowe v. Wade is a remarkable Supreme Court ruling that legalizes abortion in the United States. Decision 7-2 was announced on January 22, 1973. Judge Harry A. Blackman, a humble Republican from the Midwest and an advocate for the right to abortion, wrote the majority opinion.
What was the case? The decision overturned laws in many states that banned abortion, declaring that they could not ban the procedure before the fetus could survive outside the womb. This moment, known as fetal viability, was about 28 weeks when Roe was decided. Today, most experts believe it is about 23 or 24 weeks.
What else did the case do? Rowe v. Wade created a framework for regulating abortion based on the trimester of pregnancy. During the first trimester, he allowed almost no regulations. In the second, it allows regulations to protect women’s health. In the third, it allows states to ban abortions, as long as exceptions are made to protect the life and health of the mother. In 1992, the court dropped this framework, while confirming Roe’s main possession.
These and other sharp criticisms angered transgender activists and their allies, who denounced them as transphobic. Some also object to the language of the abortion rights movement, which speaks of a “war on women.” “It’s really hard,” wrote the trans activist, “to be present in a movement that is so incredibly Cisexist.”
In New York, the Progressive Party of Working Families and the Democratic Socialists of America are political forces. When Politico received a draft statement stating that the Supreme Court was prepared to overturn Rowe v. Wade, which grants a constitutional right to abortion, those parties came out endlessly exposed – in gender-neutral language.
The world of basic democratic politics gives voice to these sentiments in a more familiar slang, aimed at voters rather than activists.
Last year, the Biden administration issued budget documents that reflect the gender discourse of the progressives and refer to “people giving birth”. The Conservatives rushed.
But this month, when information leaked about a potential Supreme Court turnaround, President Biden was unequivocal in his language choices. “I believe that a woman’s right to choose is fundamental,” he said. “Fundamental justice and the stability of our law require that it not be repealed.
Several left-wing congressmen have adopted the language of the movement. Missouri Democrat Corey Bush testified last year about “people giving birth.” But it is much more common to hear that senators and members of Congress, both women and men, refer to women. “We can’t go back to the days when women had to risk their lives to end an unwanted pregnancy,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist who represents Vermont.
Professor Laurel Elder of Hartwick College and Prof. Stephen Green of North Carolina State University studied the rise of feminist identity in age and education. Many young activists, Professor Elder noted, completely reject the distinction between men and women. “But,” she said, “the reality is that the larger society is not there yet.”
Professor Green questioned the wisdom of activists urging the mass movement to reject its basic and basic sexual identity. Why, for example, do you not insist that women and transgender men are at risk when it comes to abortion?
“Activists perceive symbols and language that are repulsive not only to the right, but also to the people in the center and even to the liberals,” he said.
For this reason, he was not surprised when most democratic politicians refused to repeat the language of progressive organizations. “You don’t become a presidential candidate or a spokesman for the House by being stupid about what you do in politics,” he said. Democrats would not be afraid to use the word “women.”
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