'Pregnant persons': Ohio Sen Sherrod Brown scrubbed 'women' from bill on pregnancy
Sen. Brown erased women from his most recent version of a bill relating to health insurance enrollment periods for pregnant women.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, quietly erased the words "women" and "woman" from a bill relating to insurance enrollment periods for pregnant women.
In 2015, the Ohio Democrat introduced the first iteration of the Healthy Maternity and Obstetric Medicine Act. It featured the word "women" 22 times, "maternity" 19 times and "woman" twice.
By last year, he had scrubbed it of references to women before the bill's re-introduction. The 2023 version does not make any mention of "women" or "woman." It also reduced references to "maternity" to only four.
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The measure itself seeks to establish a special health insurance enrollment period for pregnant women by amending the Public Health Service Act to require it by law.
Introduced several times, including in 2015, 2019, 2021 and 2023, the bill once featured a section titled, "Findings and Purpose." Within that section, "women" were referenced 19 times in 2015 and 20 times in 2019.
According to the section, "Pregnancy is a significant life event for millions of women in the United States each year."
Brown even referred to "sex-based discrimination," claiming that federal law has determined that "treating pregnancy differently than other conditions" qualifies as such.
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The lengthy section was then inexplicably removed from both the 2021 and 2023 versions of the measure. The later iterations of the bill solely rely on the descriptors "pregnant person" and "pregnant individual" rather than "woman."
When contacted by Fox News Digital, neither Brown's office nor his campaign answered why the bill was scrubbed of references to women, despite being on the topic of pregnancy.
Brown's campaign and office also did not respond to questions from Fox News Digital on whether he believes that anyone other than women can become pregnant or if he could cite an occasion when a man had given birth to a child.
The senator did not provide any comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication.
Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who is endorsed by former President Trump, is running to unseat Brown in November. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Moreno spokesperson Reagan McCarthy said, "By erasing women from a bill centered around women's health care during pregnancy, Sherrod Brown is saying the quiet part out loud: he doesn't believe that only women can get pregnant and wants to erase biological women's unique abilities."
"Brown isn't just a far-left extremist, he's also a bonafide weirdo."
Brown is running for re-election in Ohio, a red state which has voted for Trump in the past two presidential elections. His race is rated a "Toss Up" by non-partisan political handicapper the Cook Political Report, alongside Senate match-ups in Montana and Michigan.
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The vulnerable Ohio senator's removal of "women" from the measure comes as a national debate on gender identity continues, with specific areas of contention in language, women's sports and school-appropriate content. The decision to omit mention of women follows a trend among Democrats to include transgender individuals, who may be biologically a man or woman but say they identify as something else, in discussions on policy.
While only biological women can become pregnant, a woman might say she is transgender and identify as a man.
Republicans have sought to point out their Democratic counterparts' ambiguity on inherently gendered subjects. GOP politicians and pundits have often questioned Democrats on the definition of a woman, frequently showcasing their opponents' unwillingness to put the term in precise words.
