Biden’s Change of Title IX Would Redefine Pregnancy to Include Abortion

The Biden Administration’s recent move to redefine sex under Title IX anti-discrimination policy has drawn anger from Americans— but a recent report reveals the administration is taking a dangerous step to redefine pregnancy.

According to The Heritage Foundation (HF), the Biden Administration wants to redefine pregnancy to include childbirth, lactation, and “termination of pregnancy,” or abortion. The HF explains that the change would protect an individual who got an abortion from facing discrimination.  For example, with a doctor’s note, a woman can recover from the procedure and not be penalized for missing class or a sports competition.  The language in the policy now equates a process that maintains life, pregnancy, with a process of ending life–abortion.  “It’s a distinction that makes all the difference.  The new definition would treat abortion as morally equal to pregnancy, childbearing, and lactation,” wrote Melanie Israel and Emma Waters with HF.  “This is absurd.  Pregnancy is a natural process.  A new life begins at the moment of conception.  This human being is just that— a human being— at every stage of development,” they explained.  “Abortion, in contrast, is the intentional, direct destruction of preborn human life.  It kills the pre-born baby and halts the natural process of pregnancy.”

The change is hard to spot in the 700-page policy, but outlines on 3 pages that the new definition would allow Title IX to be “more fully” implemented.  “The proposed definition would more fully implement Title IX by clarifying that Title IX covers discrimination based on medical conditions related to or caused by pregnancy, childbirth, termination of pregnancy, or lactation, even if they are not related to ‘recovery from pregnancy,’ ” the policy reads in part.

Americans understand the new policy would not only end protections for girls and women by allowing men who identify as women to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms and to compete on women’s sports teams.  But experts at HF explain that schools will be able “opt-in” to use Title IX as a vehicle to promote abortion.  “By neither ‘requiring nor prohibiting’ abortion access in schools, the language of the Title IX rule change would create a “gray zone,” they explained.  “This gray zone would mean that schools may ‘opt in’ to use Title IX as a vehicle for abortion education, referrals, or access.  This could take the form of connecting students with abortion clinics, not disclosing a pregnancy or abortion to a minor’s parents, paying for abortion travel, or promoting dangerous abortion pills.”

HF makes clear the Biden Administration does not have the power to rewrite state’s abortion policies, but its promotion of it under the Title IX rule could incentivize schools to push it.  As CBN News has reported, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a new rule in July, expanding the definition of discrimination on the basis of sex to include decisions concerning abortion.  Pregnant women would be protected by the HHS rule if they faced discrimination due to pregnancy or other related conditions, including abortion or “pregnancy termination.”  “We want to make sure that whoever you are, whatever you look like, wherever you live, however you wish to live your life, that you have access to the care that you need so that your decisions are based on what you and your health-care provider and your physician ... is available to you so you can access the care that you need,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel