The White House’s 2022 fiscal year budget replaced the word mothers with birthing people in a section about public health funding, prompting ridicule Monday from President Joe Biden‘s conservative critics.
The Biden administration’s budget includes a public health section which addresses efforts to “reduce maternal mortality rates and end race-based disparities in maternal mortality.” The budget specifically addresses racial disparities between Black, American Indian/Alaska Native and other women of color. But it is the replacement of the word mother with birthing people that drew the ire of conservative think tank leaders and right-wing media members Monday following the release of Biden’s budget.
A Heritage Foundation lobbyist on Capitol Hill responded incredulously tweeting, “Why does Biden want to cancel mothers?”
“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. To help end this high rate of maternal mortality and race-based disparities in outcomes among birthing people,” reads the 2022 White House fiscal year budget proposal.
The pro-choice nonprofit NARAL defended use of the term, tweeting, “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.”
The phrase birthing people also drew mockery from Republicans last month after Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush used the term during House testimony about the country’s Black maternal health crisis. “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,” the Democratic lawmaker testified on May 6.
The Biden budget proposal goes on to include “more than $200 million to: reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates nationwide; bolster Maternal Mortality Review Committees; expand the Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies program.”
Full story at MSN.com.
So no, I won’t be calling the Blessed Virgin Mary the “birthing person” of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Call me old fashioned.
But that’s what “theotokos” means. So do you have a problem with the Council of Ephesus?
No, Anonymous. “Theotokos” means “Mother of God.” And that’s all. No nonsense.
You speak of what you do not know, “Mother of God” in Greek is “maytayr tou Theou”. I studied Greek as well as Latin. Although “theotokos” is loosely translated into English as “Mother of God” or “God-bearer/carrier” and those are fine dynamic equivalent translations of the word, the strict formal equivalence translation of “theotokos” is “God-birther”. Mary is indeed the birth-person of God.
The remark of Moms Care doesn’t deny that Mary birthed God; in fact, her remark implies it. So what’s with the fake correction “Mary is indeed the birth-person of God”? Moms Care probably knows that already.
And Latin and Greek, you say? Great. So then you know the difference between literal and idiomatic translations, and why the latter should sometimes be preferred to the former?
And how about logic? Any familiarity? Then you know the difference between nominal and real definitions, and why the former (e.g., ‘theotokos’ is ‘God birther’) are always inferior to the latter — at least for people who care about things and reality, not just words and language.
These anonymous posters are just trolls enjoying their ability to get a rise out of Catholics. Glad you are correcting their twisting of word and meaning, Juan.
It is the fifth line in the article that makes no sense. A man or hormaphadite did not give birth to Jesus Christ, a woman did — the Holy Theotokas, which is translated into Latin AND English as “Dei Genitrix or Dei Mater, a birther is a woman with a womb and female genitalia, No man or hormaphadite gave birth to the Lord Jesus Christ and no man or hormaphadite gives birth to anyone. There is no “cis- gender” that gives birth. A person with out a left arm cannot be a left-handed pitcher.
It does… theotokos means “God-birther”. Don’t thumbs down something you obviously don’t understand. The Council of Ephesus decreed that Mary is “God-birther”. The Church reveres her as “God-birther.” That was in the year 431. So Ephesus was actually quite progressive, eh?
Enough, Anonymous.
Anonymous: “But that’s what ‘theotokos’ means.”
And by ‘Theotokos’, did the council fathers mean to designate merely the gestational source of Christ as man, or also the biological and material source of Christ as man? The etymological significance of a term is one thing; what it means according to its referent is another.
That is why suggesting that Mary’s title as Theotokos merely names her as ‘God birther’ is ridiculous. The title names her as both the material and gestational source of Christ’s humanity and, therefore, as Our Lord’s mother.
Similarly, in the world of academic philosophy, you’d be laughed off campus for insisting that philosophy just is the ‘love of wisdom’ (even though that is etymologically correct). In reference to the thing it signifies, the term ‘philosophy’ means the purely rational and systematic study of things through their first causes.
Mary is both Mother of God and God-birther. The original poster said that she wouldn’t be referring to Mary as the birthing person of God. I contributed that the Council of Ephesus gave Mary just such a title in Greek, so it’s nothing to be averse to. Don’t denigrate something that you don’t like simply because you don’t like it or understand it. Calling Mary God-birther takes nothing away from her as also being Mother of God. It’s both-and, not either-or.
Anonymous, please stop this nonsense! These idiots who degrade Motherhood have no respect at all for their own mothers, nor for Mary, the Mother of God! They are all extremely immature, immoral, disrespectful, Godless fools! Tomorrow, June 12, is the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary! Please give Our Blessed Mother love, honor and respect on her Feast Day! No more nonsense!
“There oughtta be a law” against such belittling, degradation and dishonoring of motherhood. Honestly– we do need to pass laws restoring and protecting the true concepts of manhood, womanhood, true marriage of man and woman, and true family– motherhood and fatherhood, and children. “LGBTs” are abnormal, mentally sick and dysfunctional. You cannot base human life on an abnormal, dysfunctional and illogical, wrongful concept!.President Biden needs to “wake up”— and honor his mother. She certainly was not a “birthing person.”
NARAL: “When we talk about birthing people, we’re being
inclusivedumb as hell.”To all the Catholics on this site who voted for Biden… explain this one away….
To some Bishops who supported the Dems view when are they going to wake up.
Coming soon… businesses will refuse to acknowledge Mother’s Day because it’s racist or something.
Why not just call a rose a rose? Yes, I can think of not too convoluted cases where the biological mother is not who the child knows as mother. For example, mother dies in childbirth or in an accident while child is very young. someone adopts and raises the child to adulthood. The child considers that person ‘momny’
Of course, at an appropriate time, the child should learn all the facts, especially if there may be a DNA issue.
There are mothers who are not the person who gave birth.
So what?
That justifies at most the creation of an additional term, not the replacement of another.
WHich is why we refer to adoptive mothers versus biological mothers.
We?
My close peronal childhood friend Richard was adopted. I never him or anyone else refer to his mother as anything other than mom or ma.
You comment is without sense.
But they are not called “birthing persons” because they are not. Step mothers, adoptive mothers, but not birthing person. That title denigrates women. The Catholic Church is also against surrogate motherhood as it is better to adopt a child already born, and poor women are being misused by other women — often forced into be surrogate mothers for wealthier women just to survive.
So, I imagine that in the new woke and trans military, the GBU-43/B MOAB can no longer be referred to as the Mother Of All Bombs.
Maybe they will try that ridiculous Birthing Persons Day again next year.
I hope this is all just a nightmare and a Chinese lab didn’t release a bioweapon and we didn’t give up our liberty and economy. Can I really be seeing what I’m seeing in the news, about the nation, the world and even the Church?
When will this nightmare end?
Revelation 21:1-8?
Let’s be clear about the enormous delusions about reality and convoluted language that the Left wants everyone to adopt.
According to the Left, it is possible for a man to give birth. This “man” would have a uterus but not testicles. “He” would be the male birthing person of the child “he” gives birth to, but don’t you dare call “him” the child’s mother because “he” is not a female nor a woman: “he” chooses to identify as male even though “he” has all the genetic and anatomical characteristics of a female and — up until about three weeks ago — “he” would have been considered a female, a woman, a mother, by every sane person on earth. Now, though, if you call “him” a woman, a female, a mother, or even a biological female then you are considered a bigot by the Left.
When you vote for Democrats, this is the lunacy you are supporting and perpetuating.
Yes. This is an example of the lunacy of the left. However, remember when you vote for republicans you are supporting racism and efforts to suppress the votes of poor people as well as people of color. It’s all based on fear mongering.
Actually when you vote for Democrats you are supporting racism. so-called “antiracism” is racism against whites. Republicans want a color-blind society that treats all people equally, which is was what Democrats also used to want until they decided that there was power to be had in fomenting racial strife and divisions in America.
Must be tough being you, having to admit the lunacy of the left, but on the other hand, spouting their fake talking points. As a person of color, my Republican votes are certainly based on fear mongering. Their ideas are simply better, like calling women who give birth mothers.
Who voted against the Civil Right Act in the 60s and filibuster foe several days. I thinks it was dems who did the filibuster. Lincoln and Republicans fought a war to free the slaves
Baby Mamas.
In the US today, most “birthing persons” are baby mamas-not married to the father.
“We don’t want to offend in our language. I get that. But would you at least admit calling a ‘mom’ a ‘birthing person’ could be offensive to some moms?”
— Sen. James Lankford, R-OK, to Xavier Becerra (D-CA), secretary of Health and Human Services.
I don’t care if the word “Mother” or “Mom” offends someone. If they are offended at it that’s their problem, not mine.
If Joe Biden didn’t have a Mother I’ll eat my hat!!!
Such a put down on women. Oh, we are only “birthing people”?????? Really…..Something has to change before communism sets in. It is a path they are putting the people of the United States in…a pathway to communism…..and if someone does not stop it we will be taken over by the government. I cannot imagine calling my mom “birthing people”…….they can drop dead.
Well, “birthing person” would be an apt term to use for surrogate mothers.
No because the surrogate who had the baby is a biological woman, therefore, a mother.
But not the woman who contributed the ovum. Therefore, not the biological, genetic mother.
“Birthing persons” sounds like something those 2 aliens in Nathan Pyle’s comic strip would say.
Good to know kids will have additional ways of calling Mom (Oops, Birthing Person)
‘Birthie” “Persie” “BirtPer’
Why not do what the Democrats also want, “Birthing Man”?
and now the women are to switch roles, and become “Power Persons”
Good Ladies, have fun lifting bags of concrete and getting splinters under your fingernails..
And let’s not forget the upcoming “Birthing person’s Day!”
Oh, wait…
Please! Vote these (persons?) out of office!
‘Most birthing persons not married to the father…’ Does this mean that well over fifty percent of births are technically bastards? Clarification would help.
This isn’t Game of Thrones. Over 50% of babies born now are born to unmarried women.
“Birthing people” can include females for midwifery and males for husbandry especially in rural areas.
Never have I read as many disingenuous comments. How stupid that you argue that a woman who gives birth is anything but a mother whether she wants to be or not
Silly rabbit- men can’t give birth and are not mothers.
The point of the article is that some people with uteruses are not female, so to call them mothers improperly designates them as being female. So the neutral word birthing person is used instead.
There are rare cases where a person has a womb and partial outside male genitalia. That can be remedied to a certain extent if the person wants to go through the reparative surgery. If that person does conceive a child, they are enough a woman with enough female parts to do so, and it still does not change the fact that most people are born a man or a woman, and women give birth to children, and fully developed men do not. Male parts don’t conceive children, they sire them.
A Mother liquor is not female.
What? Makes no cents.
People are turning this into a gender issue and that is not what it is.
Pro-life people might want to support this because a birthing person (stupid term) does not have to be a mother. They will be the biological mother but the real mother will be the adoptive mother.
All women who conceive should become birthing persons even if they do not want to be a mother.
Regarding my last post, any person who conceives and births a child is the child’s mother, even though the person might have partial male genitalia. Exceptions do not get to make the rules.
Anyone with a uterus or gets pregnant or has a baby is female. It isn’t rocket science, it’s just political theatre engaged in by spreaders of evil nonsense to deny truth.
My advice to mothers out there who are upset by this, if you have to sign any papers dealing with motherhood and it says “birthing person”, cross it out and put in “mother”. Sometimes organizations and mortgage companies will trick you into not giving your gender by typing in “prefer not to say” for you and then have you sign it, when you really would prefer to put in “male” or “female”, your true gender (sex). That is a big problem when doing things on forms from a computer. Best to print out forms and send USPS.
We need Donald Trump back in office in 2024! Only he can save the United States of America from this communist takeover of Biden and the communist Democrats. Everything Donald Trump warned us about has come true! Every lie the Democrats told about him have proven to be false