Top New York health official calls white women ‘birthers’, calls black and Hispanic women ‘mothers’ | Top stories

A top New York health official is facing backlash after a series of tweets she posted calling white mothers “people births” while calling black and Hispanic women “mothers.”

REPRESENTING. CORI BUSH BURNT FOR REFERRING TO WOMEN AS ‘BIRTH PEOPLE:’ SHE REDUCES MOTHERS ‘TO A FUNCTION’

The comments from Dr. Michelle Morse, chief medical officer of the New York City Department of Health, came in a series of tweets touting the city’s “birth equity” initiative to expand the “doula program and as a city-wide midwife”.

“The urgency of this moment is clear,” Morse wrote. “Mortality rates for people giving birth are too high, and babies born to black and Puerto Rican mothers in this city are three times more likely to die in their first year of life than babies born to non-Hispanic white mothers. “

Morse, who was hired in February last year as the department’s first chief medical officer, is also the department’s deputy commissioner for the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness, which focuses on ending inequality. racial.

Several social media users responded to Morse, accusing the doctor of splitting.

“White mothers are called ‘babies’ and black and Puerto Rican mothers are called mothers,” one Twitter user asked Morse. “Your license to practice medicine should be revoked.”

“My mother Francesca, who is white, was delivered by a midwife who was white under a Stillman Street sink in a cold water apartment in the 1920s,” the former New York mayoral candidate wrote. York, Curtis Sliwa. “According to Dr. Morse, what would that do to my grandmother? How ridiculous”.

A DOH spokesperson told the New York Post that Morse’s tweet was an “oversight” and said “we apologize for inadvertently gendering Black and Puerto Rican births.”

Morse’s remarks come just months after Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared racism a “public health crisis” in the state.

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaks during a press conference at the Brooklyn Army Terminal Annex in the Brooklyn borough of New York on January 20, 2022. Paul Frangipane/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Morse received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2008 and his MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health in May 2012, according to the NYC Health Department.

Several Democrats, including Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., as well as the pro-choice group NARAL, have emphasized the term “birthing people.”

“Every day black people give birth and our babies die because our doctors don’t believe in our pain. My kids have almost become a statistic. I’ve almost become a statistic. Testified about my experience @OversightDems today . Listen to us. Believe us. Because for so long no one has,” Bush wrote in a Tweeter last May.

Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., testifies during the House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing entitled Birthing While Black: Examining Americas Black Maternal Health Crisis, in the Rayburn Building on Thursday, May 6, 2021. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Echoing Bush’s remarks on the term, NARAL wrote“When we talk about childbirth, we’re inclusive. It’s as simple as that. We use gender-neutral language when we talk about pregnancy because it’s not just cisgender women who can get pregnant and give birth. The freedom to procreate is for * Everyone.

Likewise, the Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-CortezDN.Y., was ridiculed for using the term “menstruating person” instead of women during an interview.

Fox News did not receive an immediate response from New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office or the New York City Department of Health.