Let’s clear something up before we start rewriting the dictionary. Only women can get pregnant. Not ‘people’, not ‘uterus-having entities’, not ‘individuals of reproductive potential’. Just women. That’s it. That’s the fact. And the government is absolutely right to say so.
Associate Health Minister Casey Costello recently told Health New Zealand to drop the vague and confusing terminology like pregnant people in its official communications and go back to using the correct word. Women. Cue the outrage from the usual left corners, but, really, what are we arguing about here? Biology?
Because here’s the thing. No matter how someone identifies, the only human beings capable of becoming pregnant, giving birth, and breastfeeding are adult biological females. You know, women. Not a gender identity. A sex. One that’s been around for all of human history.
You can call yourself anything you want, but calling yourself a dog doesn’t mean you can fetch a stick with your teeth and pass it off as breakfast. And calling someone a ‘pregnant person’ doesn’t magically make pregnancy a gender-neutral experience. This isn’t exclusion. It’s anatomy.
The problem with this new-age, overly careful, woke language is that it’s turning basic health information into a word salad. If you tell a woman she needs to attend a ‘birthing person cervical health screening’, she might think it’s a support group for Mars colonists, not a check up for her cervix.
This hits even harder for women who don’t speak English fluently. Imagine translating individuals capable of childbearing into a second language. Would you know what that means? Probably not. But women? That’s pretty clear.
Women face real, specific, health challenges. Endometriosis, cervical cancer, PCOS, pregnancy complications... These are not ‘person’ problems. These are women’s problems. And if we start tiptoeing around the word women to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, we risk hurting the very people the health system is supposed to serve.
This doesn’t mean trans or non-binary people should be excluded from care. Of course not. If someone who is biologically female but identifies differently needs pregnancy care, they should receive it and with respect. But there’s a big difference between being inclusive and being absurd.
The government’s message is simple. When we talk about women’s health, we need to actually use the word women. That’s not offensive. That’s accurate. And honestly, it’s long overdue.
We can be kind without being confusing. We can support everyone without pretending biology is optional. And we can definitely agree that when it comes to giving birth, women are the ones doing all the heavy lifting, literally.
So say it with me now. Only women get pregnant. Say it in clinics. Say it in pamphlets. Say it on the internet. Because pretending otherwise isn’t progressive: it’s just nonsense.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
