Gender and pregnancy in the New York Times

In 2021, gender ID had nothing to do with pregnancy. “The C.D.C. escalates its pleas for pregnant and breastfeeding Americans to get vaccinated against Covid.” (New York Times, September 29, 2021):

In an urgent plea, federal health officials are asking that any American who is pregnant, planning to become pregnant or currently breastfeeding get vaccinated against the coronavirus as soon as possible.

Covid-19 poses a severe risk during pregnancy, when a person’s immune system is tamped down, and raises the risk of stillbirth or another poor outcome, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Twenty-two pregnant people in the United States died of Covid in August, the highest number in a single month since the pandemic started.

About 125,000 pregnant people have tested positive for the virus; 22,000 have been hospitalized, and 161 have died. Hospital data indicates that 97 percent of those who were infected with the virus when they were hospitalized — for illness, or for labor and delivery — were not vaccinated.

Vaccination rates among pregnant people are lower than among the general population. Fewer than one-third were vaccinated before or during their pregnancy, the agency said.

Some data also suggest that pregnant people with Covid-19 are more likely to experience conditions that complicate pregnancy … Clinical trials have a long history of excluding pregnant people from participation, and pregnant people were not included in the coronavirus vaccine trials.

The phrase “pregnant people” occurs 10 times in the article.

Fast forward to this week… “Despite State Bans, Legal Abortions Didn’t Fall Nationwide in Year After Dobbs”:

… increased options and assistance for women who traveled …

The response by abortion providers and activists to the end of Roe v. Wade, it seems, has resulted in more access to abortion in states where it’s still legal — not just for women traveling from states with bans but also for women living there.

Many women, especially in the South, have turned to methods outside the U.S. medical system or carried their pregnancies to term, researchers said. These women are likely to be poor, teenagers or immigrants, and to have young children or jobs that don’t give them time off.

Planned Parenthood Northern California, which operates 17 clinics, began hiring and expanding appointments and telehealth months before Dobbs. It was in part to prepare for an overturn of Roe, and in part a realization that demand for women’s health care had built up during the pandemic, said Dr. Sara Kennedy, its chief operating and medical officer.

More recently, women in states with bans have also been able to order the pills because of shield laws that protect providers that prescribe and mail pills to such patients.

Not a single use of the phrase “pregnant people” to describe those who receive abortion care.