For years, the pro-abortion rights movement has been a radically feminist cause. Now, however, many of its proponents can’t even bring themselves to say the word “woman.”
Take, for example, this Washington Post editorial about the leaked draft opinion that revealed the Supreme Court might strike down Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The editorial blasts the decision, which is not final, as “a grievous blow to freedom” and “the legitimacy of the court itself” and mourns the potential loss of abortion rights in some states as an attack on … “pregnant people.”
Indeed, not once in the entire 800-word article does the word “woman” appear. Instead, they are referred to as “pregnant individuals” or “pregnant people.” This deliberate refusal to refer to women as women is yet another example of gender ideology run amok. It is absurd and dishonest, and in this case, it actually undermines the very cause the editorial is backing.
If the defense of abortion is that it is an issue of women’s rights, but you can’t even bring yourself to use the phrases “women’s rights” or “women’s bodies,” then what exactly is the point? For years, we’ve been told that abortion is the business of one sex only, but now, we can’t even refer to that sex by its name. Are women the only people who should get to decide whether they should remain pregnant, or can men also make that decision now since they can become pregnant? And are men the ones trying to legislate women’s bodies, or should we start referring to them as non-chest-feeding persons since not all men are actually men?
Gender ideology and the conscious choice not to use gendered language have turned the abortion debate into a confusing game of who’s who. It’s no longer clear who the victims or aggressors are, and the argument that men shouldn’t be able to control women’s bodies (or, should I say, that non-chest-feeding persons shouldn’t be able to control pregnant individuals’ bodies) is no longer compelling.
That’s why many leftists choose to put gender ideology back on the shelf whenever the abortion debate rears its head. They know it’s impossible to square the politically correct, gender-neutral dogma they’ve embraced with the years-old feminist talking points that have heretofore been successful. Here’s California Gov. Gavin Newsom, for instance:
https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1521934666877464577?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
And, of course, here was the inevitable rebuke from the Woke Language Police:
https://twitter.com/TransJA/status/1522215688080814081?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The Left has backed itself into this corner. It has embraced an ideology so illogical that it can no longer use its own past rhetoric or state biological facts without being accused of bigotry. And as a result, the Left has had to take what was already an unconvincing argument in favor of abortion and poke a dozen more holes in it.
Now, the debate isn’t really about women or their bodies because there are plenty of other people besides women who can also get pregnant and be affected. And no longer is this a battle against patriarchal oppression since there are plenty of men who were once women and men who now claim to be women who would be unfairly smeared by that allegation.
It would be funny if it weren’t so damn stupid.
