As exemplified by prospective Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s “I’m not a biologist” quip when asked to define what a “woman” is, Democrats and “woke” progressives have increasingly shied away from using the term “woman” in favor of more gender-inclusive language in recent years.
Yet that abruptly changed this week after a Supreme Court ruling that overturns the Roe v. Wade abortion precedent was leaked and Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) suddenly and hypocritically reemerged as champions of “women’s rights,” according to an op-ed for The Telegraph by U.K. columnist Joanna Williams.
Williams is pro-choice and described herself as being “angry” and “shocked” at the imminent overturning of Roe v. Wade, but those feelings were countered by the “nauseating” about-face seen by so many politicians on the left when it comes to “women” and gender.
Defenders of women’s rights couldn’t even say “women” weeks ago
As just one example of the whiplash-inducing turnaround, the columnist looked to Sen. Warren and a speech she delivered to abortion supporters outside the Supreme Court the day after a draft copy of an anti-abortion ruling by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked through the media.
Warren proclaimed to the crowd of pro-choice activists, “I am angry. Angry and upset and determined,” and blasted the Republican-appointed jurists on the court while insisting that the Democratic-controlled Congress could and should immediately step in to defend and uphold women’s rights.
According to Williams, though, “Their side — just days ago — were unable to say the word ‘woman’ without caveats and apologies. Their movement thinks being a woman is nothing more than a feeling, an identity, and that any male should be able to stick on a frock and expect to be welcomed into the ladies’ toilets. A week ago they could not define ‘woman’ if their life depended on it and now we are expected to believe they are standing up for women’s rights. Come off it.”
“The woke elite have spent the past few years expunging the word ‘woman’ from all discussion of reproduction,” she continued, and instead have “started referring to ‘menstruators,’ ‘birthing parents,’ ‘cervix havers,’ and ‘chest feeders.’ According to this mindset, it is not women who need access to abortion but ‘uterus-havers.'”
People who have spent the past few years unable even to utter the word woman are now trying to pose as the defenders of women’s rights. People who have repeatedly told us that biology does not make you a woman are suddenly horrified that women will no longer be able to decide for themselves what happens to their bodies. People who have told us that being a woman is no more than an identity, are now outraged that men can make legal decisions that impact upon women. The hypocrisy is astounding.
“My body, my choice” for abortions, but not for vaccines?
A similar message was put forward by syndicated columnist Adriana Cohen in an op-ed for The Journal about “Hypocrisy on the Left” in the wake of the Roe v. Wade abortion news.
While Cohen certainly addressed the rapid shift in Democratic language from being gender-inclusive to full-throated feminism, there was another “glaring double standard” that needed to be called out — the common refrain of “My body, my choice” that has been favored by abortion advocates for decades.
That slogan was all but discarded and disavowed by the left when it was unironically adopted in 2021 by people resistant to government-mandated COVID-19 vaccines, but now, in the blink of an eye, is back in vogue among Democrats once more.
Democrats had cast aside the self-proclaimed mantle of “women’s rights” defenders in favor of appeasing the gender-nonconforming crowd but now seek to hypocritically reclaim once their precious sacrament of abortion appears threatened, and that stunning reversal is as transparent as it is absurd.
