A 502-page regulatory overhaul quietly proposed by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro would strip the words “mother” and “pregnant woman” from the state’s health code entirely, replacing them with gender-neutral terminology pushed by transgender activists.
Women who give birth to stillborn babies would no longer be called mothers under the proposed changes. Instead, they’d be labeled “postpartum individuals.” The term “pregnant woman” disappears too, swapped out for “pregnant or postpartum individual” throughout the massive document announced on August 8.
The language changes are buried within a sweeping proposal that would also hand Shapiro’s Department of Health dramatic new powers. The regulatory overhaul includes provisions allowing officials to enter homes and schools without a warrant, access confidential medical records, and impose statewide school mask mandates under the banner of “disease control measures.” Since the Department of Health reports directly to the governor’s office, these changes would give Shapiro and future governors the ability to unilaterally implement far-reaching policies across the commonwealth.
The push to erase biological terminology from medical language isn’t unique to Pennsylvania. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has urged doctors to “make their offices inclusive and inviting to all individuals who need obstetric or gynecologic health care” and to use transgender-inclusive language. In a March 2021 committee opinion, the organization wrote that “some postpartum transgender individuals may not identify as ‘mothers'” and suggested using “a more neutral term, such as ‘parent.'”
Shapiro has been a vocal champion of transgender ideology throughout his tenure. At a July 2024 pride event in Harrisburg, the Democrat governor made his position clear.
“I want to say, especially to our trans children, I see you and I love you,” Shapiro declared. “I’ve gone to court to protect our trans kids and I’ll continue to stand in the town squares and town halls in every community across Pennsylvania, rural, urban, and suburban, and proclaim loudly and clearly that we love all God’s children, including our trans children.”
His administration has backed up those words with action. In August 2025, Shapiro joined a coalition of state attorneys general in suing the Trump administration over its ban on pediatric transgender medical procedures, including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-change surgeries.
The governor also created the Governor’s Advisory Commission on LGBTQ Affairs in June 2023.
For Pennsylvania families, the proposed health code changes represent yet another front in the ongoing battle over whether biological reality will be acknowledged in official government policy. The question now is whether state lawmakers will allow the erasure of women and mothers from the commonwealth’s health regulations.
