Women say thank you, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello – Women’s Rights Party

Women’s Rights Party members are thrilled to hear that Health New Zealand has been directed to say “women” instead of “pregnant people” in its communications about women’s health issues.

Radio NZ reported this morning that Associate Health Minister Casey Costello wrote to interim chief executive Dr Dale Bramley in late March telling the agency to use “clear language” including use of the word “women”.

“Recent documents that have reached my office from the Ministry of Health have referred to women as ‘pregnant people’, ‘people with a cervix’ or ‘individuals capable of childbearing’,” she said in the letter.

Women’s Rights Party Co-leader Jill Ovens says the issue is about language being used by Health NZ and the Ministry of Health in policies and health information relating to women’s health. It is not about how individuals are treated.

“Of course, women who have used testosterone so they can present as men will have particular issues in pregnancy, including getting pregnant in the first place. If they have had a double mastectomy when they were teenagers, breastfeeding will be out of the question, though they may not have thought about this at the time,” she says.

Ms Ovens says it is insulting to suggest that midwives and other health professionals do not treat all those they care for with respect.

The issue that Minister Costello is addressing is the language around women’s reproductive health, which has been weaponised to advance the visibility of a particular group, and not the health and wellbeing of all women.

Says Ms Ovens: “This is not only about using clear language to reach out to non-English speakers or those with low literacy, it is also about how angry and belittled most women feel every time ‘pregnant people’ is used to replace ‘pregnant women’.”

“If we are really going to be ‘inclusive’, then we should be talking about women as only biological women can get pregnant and birth a child, no matter how they identify,” she says.

She hopes the directive to Health NZ will flow on to the Midwifery Council that has released its latest version of the Midwifery Scope of Practice, only once mentioning the word “woman”.

The Midwifery Council is currently consulting over its amended Scope of Practice, following complaints by the Women’s Rights Party and others to Parliament’s Regulations Review Committee. The Scope of Practice now opens with the following convoluted statement:

“The primary obligation of a kahu pōkai | midwife is to provide whānau-centred care for individuals (however they may identify) who are capable of childbearing and who are preparing for pregnancy, pregnant, birthing, and post-partum up to six weeks.”^[1]

Health NZ denies it has a policy of using desexed, so-called ‘inclusive’ language, but just last year the Women’s Rights Party exposed Health NZ’s draft “Gender Diversity” policy which stated: “Having a period is not a feminine thing, and people of all genders menstruate, including non-binary people, agender people and even plenty of men.”

Ms Ovens says the inconvenient fact is that women have particular health needs that are not common to both sexes, and have been overlooked in health priorities, including funding and research.

“It is telling that the month-long campaign on prostate cancer is clearly aimed at men, not ‘prostate havers’,” Ms Ovens says. “Where is the outrage against sexed language when it comes to men?”