In a nod to gender inclusivity, Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush called women “birthing people” while testifying Thursday at a House Oversight hearing on the challenges black mothers face in the healthcare system.
The moment: Bush, who is black, described her personal experience with difficult pregnancies and the negative treatment she received from medical professionals, which she attributed to her race.
- “i sit before you here today as a single mom, as a nurse, as an activist and as a congresswoman,” she said.
- “And I am committed to doing the absolute most to protect black mothers, to protect black babies, to protect black birthing people,” Bush added.
- In a tweet on Thursday, Bush said, “Every day, Black birthing people and our babies die because our doctors don’t believe our pain.”
The reaction: While many liberals and Democrats praised Bush for her use of inclusive language, critics argued she was denying biological reality in service to progressive orthodoxy.
- Others argued that Bush’s language was an erasure of women’s status.
- “BirthingPeople? I’m empathetic to your painful & unfairly traumatic experience @CoriBush but why are you smearing bio-women to virtue signal to trans women? Why can’t we rise together? Your language is creepy. You are gaslighting. What you are doing is dangerous,” actress Rose McGowan tweeted.
- Pro-life activist Lila Rose tweeted: “How incredibly insulting to call mothers ‘birthing people.’ We are mothers. Women. Proudly.”
The response: Bush fired back at her detractors on Twitter on Thursday, accusing them of “Racism and transphobia.”
- “I testified in front of Congress about nearly losing both of my children during childbirth because doctors didn’t believe my pain,” she tweeted. “Republicans got more upset about me using gender-inclusive language in my testimony than my babies nearly dying.”
