Last week, squad member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) tripped over herself referring to women in so many different ways in a television interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper it was almost hard to keep track. She did refer to women as "women," but also "any menstruating person" and "people who do give birth," while condemning the new Texas abortion law.
Yet she isn't the only one trying to deny biology, as explained by a Friday headline from POLITICO, "Texas ban spotlights Democrats’ generational divide on abortion and trans issues."
The piece read:
The diverging language is complicating the left’s efforts to remain united on abortion rights and take on Republicans intent on banning the procedure, while drawing national attention to a fight that has long played out in private. And it’s pitting the Democratic Party’s advocacy wing against its political establishment, each of which believes it has the best strategy for protecting access to abortion.
It featured comments from someone with a pro-transgender organization:
“Every time we have staff meetings with people in Congress and the White House, we continue to hammer that abortion is also a trans issue and a trans experience,” said D. Ojeda, a policy advocate for the National Center for Transgender Equality. “Language matters because it shapes our perceptions of the world and it drives our behaviors towards other people. And in the healthcare context, it matters even more.”
Those who insist on getting at least part of biology right are considered old guard:
But the older generation in government and in some advocacy groups has resisted this shift, fearful of alienating potential supporters and provoking an even bigger backlash from the right.
One former senior leader in the reproductive rights movement said that routinely using the gender-neutral language could threaten efforts to appeal to donors, lawmakers and more moderate voters who they see as crucial to the abortion rights fight.
“What is the end goal here? Is the end goal actually winning, or is it just using the right language at that moment and winning is apparently not a priority?” said the advocate, who asked not to be named in discussing internal deliberations.
...Even some longtime progressive stalwarts say they don’t understand the need to strip gendered language from defenses of abortion rights.
“Obviously, ipso facto, it’s an attack on women,” said former Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) of Texas’ law and those like it. “We don’t have to say that, because who has babies? Women.”
Yet Boxer conceded that while she views the abortion bans primarily as an affront to women, she’s open to arguments that it also affects others.
“Whether you say A, B, C or D — get rid of the law,” she said. “That’s the most important thing.”
...
Another former Planned Parenthood staffer said advocates often got frustrated with such lawmakers, accusing them of “choosing political expediency over a strategy that could bring us all closer to justice.”
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The pro-abortion crowd may be hurting their cause, and such a distraction as they eat their own may only further embolden their opponents.
It also leaves those in the Biden administration open to attacks when they go from using terms like "birthing person" in the budget, which they rightfully get mocked for, to Jen Psaki condescendingly calling out a male reporter during a press conference for his question on abortion.
She framed her response around how women get pregnant. Even if her response was a complete non-answer, as she always does when asked about abortion, at least she gets the biology right in that sense.
While certain criticism over the White House's back and forth on how much they accept biology on the issue was a matter of mockery, the pro-abortion has noticed the overall issue, as is also discussed by POLITICO. b
Some advocates for transgender rights expressed disappointment that the president and his top aides are not using gender-neutral language in the ongoing abortion battle.
“Maybe there’s an element of political cautiousness that people feel they care, but they think some constituents or other relevant groups might not want to hear about trans men’s issues or non-binary people’s issues,” said Devin Michelle Bunten, an assistant professor of urban economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s disappointing — whatever then source of it is.”
Bunten argued that framing the Texas law solely as a danger to women neglects at-risk people who can become pregnant, but don’t identify as female.
“In particular, trans men have really bad experiences with reproductive health care and that sort of erasure of that experience has medical consequences,” she said. “Having this one-sided language thing has really real consequences for people.”
It never seems to be enough for such progressives, even though the Biden administration is the most pro-abortion in our nation's history.
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