The word “mother” is being erased by the federal government, in accordance with the executive order that President Biden signed on his first day in office on January 20, 2021. Along with other sexed words (father, brother, husband, wife, daughter, son), the edict “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation” is leading to the elimination of traditional terminology.
The proliferating corruption of the language would be laughable if it weren’t so insulting:
Birthing parents
Childbearing people
Gestational carriers
Bodies with vaginas
Menstruators
Postnatal people
People with a uterus
The Ministry of Truth (AKA the new Disinformation Governance Board that has been created under the Department of Homeland Security) no doubt will be helping us all get used to the new usage.
As George Orwell observed, “if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
At Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland, the Wokerati have started instructing students on the care and treatment of pregnant males, and future midwives are being trained to be able to catheterize a penis during “labor.”
I’m not a biologist, but I did pay sufficient attention in high school to know that a uterus and cervix are required equipment for giving birth. I also understand biology sufficiently to know that it is not possible for any mammal to change sex. Sex is not just the obvious features such as genitalia; sex is embodied in every cell of the body and plays a part in every aspect of health and wellness. Sex is determined at conception and remains static until death.
The advocates of so-called “inclusive” language claim that their goal is to be kind to everyone. The object of avoiding the word “mother” is to be sensitive to those who are biologically female but do not wish to be referred to with sex-specific terminology. One on one, this can be accommodated. But when messages intended for everyone are modified to avoid basic words like mother, what happens to everyone else?
The goal of communication cannot be to eliminate all possibility of offense. Trying to include everyone with overly broad terms can lead to ambiguity and even alienation. Phraseology such as “bodies with vaginas” and “people with a uterus” offensively reduce mothers to a series of body parts. Consider the woman who adopts a baby and struggles heroically to breastfeed; she is not a “birthing parent,” yet she deserves to be respected as a “mother” in all other ways.
If the goal is to be kind to everyone, then it is essential to use language that anyone can readily understand.
Opinion from American Thinker.
