New Scientist: Pregnant People

[MathSage]

In the leader of the 14/5/22 issue titled “Overturning Roe v Wade would be a disaster for public health” the word women is almost entirely replaced by “people” or circumlocutions. “Women” only appears when rightly explaining how much worse health care already is for minorities such as “Black women”.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg25433863-000-overturning-roe-v-wade-would-be-a-disaster-for-public-health/#

The rest of the time the wording is “forcing people to carry unwanted pregnancies”, “Those who seek and are denied abortions” and “millions of people will lose the option to have an abortion”

If we lose the word women for the sex class, we lose the power to fight for women. Dividing us into different categories such as women of colour and disabled women weakens us by not accepting that what we have in common is our sex and that continues to be a basis of oppression.

Letters to the editor: [email protected]

The original article is behind a pay wall.

THE right to end a pregnancy has been protected in the US for nearly 50 years. In a matter of weeks, that may change. The country’s highest court is poised to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision. This would be disastrous for public health and equality more broadly.
The US already has the highest maternal mortality rate of any wealthy nation, with 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births. In the UK, it is 8.8 deaths per 100,000 live births.
Given the significant health risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth, forcing more people to carry unwanted pregnancies and give birth means forcing them to face those dangers. Those who seek and are denied abortions also report higher levels of anxiety, lower self-esteem and poorer quality of life compared with those who are able to obtain one.

Things are particularly worrying when you look at existing outcomes for US minority groups, especially Black women, whose maternal mortality rate is nearly three times that of white women.
Health insurance coverage is also lower among minority groups, affecting access to more expensive, long-lasting forms of contraception, such as intrauterine devices or implants, increasing the risk of unintended pregnancy. Black women make up 28 per cent of those seeking abortions in the US each year, despite being just 14 per cent of the nation’s female population.
If abortion is restricted or banned in more than half of US states, only those with the means to travel to a place where it is legal will be able to have the procedure done safely without fear of prosecution. Abortion is one of the safest gynaecological procedures, but when performed in unsanitary conditions or by untrained providers, it can be deadly.

The consequences for disadvantaged groups will be severe, and it may only be the beginning. Millions of people will lose the option to have an abortion in their home state if Roe v Wade is overturned. Some conservative lawmakers have already made noises about restricting access to forms of contraception, including IUDs and the morning after pill.

The end of the protections under Roe v Wade could start the unravelling of many hard-fought rights.

All ‘pregnant people’ are women. The removal of legal, safe abortion affects both all women able to conceive, and all women as a political class. That includes women who identify as being something other than women, as they are still going to be treated in ways which reflect the fact that female adults (women) form an oppressed group.

Just emailed them. So annoying.

New Scientist has been appalling on this issue, probably because it depends on a large academic and US market.

If you can't rely on a science publication to stand up for science and dissect a major issue of the day scientifically, they are not doing their job - and NS has studiously avoided tackling gender ideology claims. So this doesn't surprise me at all.

I have a subscription to NS and am increasingly concerned about this.
If we cannot rely on a scientific publication to understand biology then I despair.

Oh I just picked up that issue today - I haven’t read that one. But I will and email the editor…

So I skip-read it through over dinner - looks like it was written by two people - one who says ‘women’ and the other who doesn’t know biology. Bad subbing maybe?

As far as I can see, it only seems to use the word "people" twice, at the beginning and the end. In the middle, it uses "women". I think this might be because they talk about "black women" and maybe even they realised that "black people" is wince-inducing, particularly in the context of "maternal mortality".

I wonder if they cut and pasted sections from other pieces (there’s a quite where ‘people’ is used).

Showed it to DS who used to be an editor and sub back in the day and he said it was crap subbing…

About to do the same. You'd think they would have learned from the debacle (and subsequent apology) last September concerning The Lancet's "bodies with vaginas" front cover.

I will email them. I bought a copy recently whilst waiting at a station as I had extra time to kill and I was shocked by the poor quality of some of the research articles. I think it’s gone downhill. I am a scientist btw.

I have a subscription and this thread has made me realise I’ve had enough. Following the right Twitter accounts does a good job of keeping me up to date with the science I need, and I’ve been pissed off with their genderwoo capitulation for a while now.

Regarding the subbing, I can totally see a woke editor going through eliminating all instances of “woman” until they got to the bit about black women and then had a panic, because black women are intersectional, so you are meant to use women for them, like trans women, or something.

Yes