The publicly financed British Broadcasting Corporation has come under fire for using the phrase “pregnant people” in its coverage of the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade’s federal abortion protections.
When discussing the court’s abortion ruling, the BBC used the controversial phrase “pregnant people,” which drew widespread criticism from pro-abortion European leaders such as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron.
In a report from an abortion clinic in Arkansas for BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight, presenter Sophie Long noted: “The clinical director and chair of the National Abortion Federation, Lori Williams, said knowing how many women and pregnant people would now not be able to get care was “devastating.”
In another report, the BBC’s news website followed suit, using gender-neutral phrasing: “In 1973, the court ruled in Roe vs Wade that pregnant people were entitled to an abortion during the first three months of their pregnancy.”
The Roe v. Wade decision did not use the phrase “pregnant people,” instead used the words “mother” and “women” to lay out its now-overturned ruling on the ostensibly constitutional right to abortion.
Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy for campaign group Sex Matters, criticised the supposedly neutral broadcaster’s woke language, saying, “Irrespective of where you stand on the abortion issue, we need clear, polite, unapologetic language about the reality of human existence and that’s man, woman, male and female.”
Meanwhile, it is reported that during so-called diversity training at the BBC, employees were told that there were more than 150 recognised genders.
The pro-transgender group “Global Butterflies” hosted the woke re-education seminars, telling BBC employees that they should include their gender pronouns in work emails to be a “party of your trans brand” and as an “inclusive and welcoming… brilliant show of ally support.”
Global Butterflies gave the staff a list of gender pronouns, including “xe, xem, xyrs,” and told them that “people can self-identify themselves in over 150 ways. and increasing.”