Daily Verse | 2 Chronicles 31:21
In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.
Happy Monday my friends, and Happy Mother’s Day to those of you who are moms. I hope that you had a nice day yesterday and felt honored. If you didn’t, I’m truly sorry and hope that someday that can be restored to you.
Mother’s Day was started by Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia. On May 12, 1907, she held a memorial service for her late mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, who had herself been involved in supporting mothers. In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson made it a national holiday. It has since become one of the biggest holidays for consumer spending.
More than a century later, we can clearly discern that the early twentieth century was also an era when common sense was — er, how to put it? — common. Men were men and women were women and they didn’t have a problem differentiating between the two. I bring this up because last week our standard set of categories were assaulted again when the Demokrats (it’s always the Demokrats) employed absurd language to talk about mothers.
U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., testified at a House Oversight hearing about her experience with doctors who didn’t believe her complaints about pain when giving birth to her two kids and she went into preterm labor. She says the experiences smacked of racism and claimed that “Black birthing people and our babies” die every day because they aren’t believed.
“Every day” seems a bit exaggerated, but I have no doubt that the experience, as described, was traumatic. Without taking anything away from that experience, however, you have to wonder what is going on with her last sentence before yielding back to the chairman.
“And I am committed to doing the absolute most to protect black mothers, to protect black babies, to protect black birthing people, and to save lives.”
Clearly a nod to transgenders, since she includes both “black mothers” and “black birthing people” in the same sentence. On the same day, Rep. Ayanna Pressley tweeted with similar language, but without the term “mother” — just “birthing people” and “pregnant person.”
The comments received a lot of attention and mockery from the right and, of course, the Marxists immediately deflected and made it about Republicans “pouncing” on the issue. Said Rep. Bush,
“I testified in front of Congress about nearly losing both of my children during childbirth because doctors didn’t believe my pain. Republicans got more upset about me using gender-inclusive language in my testimony than my babies nearly dying. Racism and transphobia in America.”
Not only is this absurd, this is disingenuous in the extreme. Bush is implying that the word “mother” is somehow divisive when she accuses Republicans of being more upset about “gender-inclusive language.” It’s only become “divisive” because we’ve got people who claim to be the opposite of their biological sex and insist that the rest of us pretend that it’s true. Somehow this vanishingly small minority is punching above its weight.
Second, this is a classic subversive tactic she’s engaged in — tell a story that arouses sympathy (I’m a victim) and lowers the defenses. Then insert a controversial thought or topic or word, knowing that it’s hard to attack the controversial element without looking like you’re attacking the victim.
I remember in a church we used to attend that the pastor would briefly introduce something new (a change, a person, a topic) during the worship service—a sometimes strong emotional experience—when our defenses were naturally lowered. Once introduced without controversy, that topic or word or change would be referenced again, occasionally over time until it became “normal” and you could barely remember where it had come from. I was aware of the tactic, but it’s hard to tell how many others were.
Bush also attempts to guilt Republicans into being ashamed of themselves for not being “more upset” about her story than about her word choice. At the risk of stating the obvious, her story is subjective, personal to her, had a good outcome (both kids lived through the preterm labor and birth) and there’s the big unanswered assumption that her experience is actually the norm for black women “every day.”
Using the term “birthing people,” on the other hand, is objectively intentional, is objectively outside the norms of everyday language and is objectively challenging everyone who uses the term “mother.” No one uses the term “birthing person” except those trying to subvert our norms.
By the way, do you think that it’s only “Republicans” who think replacing “mother” with “birthing person” is absurd? Almost everybody else does, too. Bush may think it’s only Republicans who oppose her because she’s surrounded by an increasingly radical party that has abandoned any semblance of historical American norms.
NARAL helpfully piled on in defense of Bush’s use of the term. Same dynamic—”mother” is not and has never been divisive until recently.
Good for you NARAL. You use “gender neutral language” because you accept the lie that “it’s not just cis-gender women that can get pregnant and give birth.”
It’s an Orwellian state of affairs we’re faced with. But they’re only following the lead of the Speaker, Fancy Nancy Ice-Cream. Back in January the House approved the use of gender-neutral terms in its official language. “Here are the words found in various parts of the code [that] will change:
“— The term seamen will be replaced with seafarers.
“— Chairman will become chair.
“— Terms for familial relationships — such as mother, father, daughter, son, sister and brother — will be swapped with terms such as parent, child and sibling.
“— The phrase “submit his or her resignation” will be replaced with “resign.”
“— The phrases “he or she serves” and “he or she holds” will be replaced with “such Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner” serves or holds, respectively.
“— The words himself and herself will be replaced with themself.”
This is just more of the bizarre Ministry of Truth trying to force it’s Newspeak on the rest of us. Hopefully, common sense—what little is left to us—will prevail. Birthing Person of Nature; Mary, Birthing Person of God; and Birthing Person Hen are all a little hard to say.
I’m not optimistic, though, because when it comes to turning a free America into Venezuela el Norte, as they say, “Necessity is the birthing person of invention.”