The American Civil Liberties Union shared an abortion quote from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier this week but replaced the word “woman’s” with “person’s.”
The organization’s tweet was shared around the anniversary of Ginsburg’s passing and comes as the ACLU has been drawing attention to a Texas law that bans abortions after the beginning of a fetal heartbeat can be detected, or around six weeks of pregnancy. But the tweet also seemed designed to adhere to one of the latest developments to come from left-wing circles — the idea that bearing children is not limited to women.
“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person’s] life, to [their] well-being and dignity… When the government controls that decision for [people], [they are] being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for [their] own choices,” reads the text of the ACLU’s tweet, which put brackets around the words they inserted.
The original quote — which the ACLU was fine repeating last year, as writer Jesse Signal has noted — reads: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. … When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices.”
With Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, we lost a champion for abortion and gender equality. And on the anniversary of her death, the fight to protect abortion access is more urgent than ever. pic.twitter.com/vIKadIHouN
— ACLU (@ACLU) September 18, 2021
Other left-wing language changes have appeared around the topic of abortion, including the invocation of the phrase “birthing people,” as Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) remarked earlier this year when talking about maternal health, as well as the phrase “menstruating person.”
“The gutting of Roe v Wade imperils every menstruating person in the US, every person who engages in sex, and every person who values our constitutional right to privacy,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) after the Supreme Court declined to block the Texas abortion law from taking effect earlier this month. “Just one reason Roe isn’t a ‘women’s issue’ beyond the fact that people who aren’t women can menstruate too!”
The gutting of Roe v Wade imperils every menstruating person in the US, every person who engages in sex, and every person who values our constitutional right to privacy.
Just one reason Roe isn’t a “women’s issue” beyond the fact that people who aren’t women can menstruate too!
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 8, 2021
Trans, two-spirit, and non-binary people have always existed and will always exist.
People can stay mad about that if they want, or they can grow up
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 8, 2021