U.S. lawmakers in both the House and the Senate are currently involved in the budget reconciliation process. This is a long and complicated process, involving the allocation of approximately $3.5 trillion to various agencies, institutions, and organizations throughout the United States.
The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce is currently considering a provision regarding public health. It is Subtitle J, Section 31046 of the budget bill, and you can read it here.
Section 31046 is called “Funding for Education and Training at Health Professions Schools to Identify and Address Health Risks Associated with Climate Change.” Sounds good, right?
Not so fast. Subsection (a) allocates $85,000,000 “ for grants to accredited medical schools, accredited schools of nursing, teaching hospitals, midwifery programs, physician assistant education programs, residency or fellowship programs, or other schools or programs determined appropriate by the Secretary, to support the development and integration of education and training programs for identifying and addressing health risks associated with climate change for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals” (emphasis added).
Subsection (b) goes on to specify that:
Amounts made available by subsection (a) shall be used for developing, integrating, and implementing curriculum and continuing education that focuses on the following:
(1) Identifying health risks associated with climate change for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant.
(2) How health risks associated with climate change affect pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant.
(3) Racial and ethnic disparities in exposure to, and the effects of, health risks associated with climate change for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant.
(4) Patient counseling and mitigation strategies relating to health risks associated with climate change for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals.
(5) Relevant services and support for pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals relating to health risks associated with climate change and strategies for ensuring such individuals have access to such services and support.
(6) Implicit and explicit bias, racism, and discrimination in providing care to pregnant, lactating, and postpartum individuals and individuals with the intent to become pregnant.
Women deserve better than this.
Article 2 of the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights reaffirms the nature of motherhood as an exclusively female status. Subsections (b) and (c) state:
Maternal rights and services are based on women’s unique capacity to gestate and give birth to children. The physical and biological characteristics that distinguish males and females mean that women’s reproductive capacity cannot be shared by men who claim a female ‘gender identity.’ States should understand that the inclusion of men who claim a female ‘gender identity’ into the legal category of mother in law, policies and practice, and the corresponding inclusion of women who claim a male ‘gender identity’ into the category of father, constitute discrimination against women by seeking to eliminate women’s unique status and sex-based rights as mothers.
States should ensure that the word ‘mother,’ and other words traditionally used to refer to women’s reproductive capacities on the basis of sex, continue to be used in constitutional acts. Legislation, in the provision of maternal services, and in policy documents when referring to mothers and motherhood. The meaning of the word ‘mother’ shall not be changed to include men.
How presumptuous of the United States government to deny the uniquely female status of pregnant, lactating, and postpartum women.
The U.S. chapter of the Women’s Human Rights Campaign demands that the United States government stop dehumanizing and erasing the sex class called women by referring to us simply as individuals. We are adult human females. We are women.
*Please note that the Women’s Human Rights Campaign USA (WHRC-USA) is now officially known as Women’s Declaration International USA (WDI-USA)
WOMEN! We are women. We are not commodities for the state nor faceless, nameless beings existing just for the sake of men.