As a Southerner, I have never felt more validated to say "damn Yankees" than I have upon seeing this piece of news.
Up in Massachusetts, House Bill 4750 just passed the state Senate and was headed for the governor's desk to be signed into law as of yesterday.
What this bill does is replace the words "mother" and "father" on new birth certificates with "person who gave birth" and "other parent."
BREAKING: Bill #H4750 just passed the Senate in MA. It would remove the word “father” on birth certificates in the name of “legal parentage equality.”
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 31, 2024
It would also replace the terms “man” & “woman” with “persons” and replace “mother” with “person who gave birth.”
It will now… pic.twitter.com/EcXqYJH5mT
Yes, really. I am laughing, too (and cringing).
What makes it more ironic and downright stupid is that apparently, the Massachusetts Women's Caucus actually endorsed this.
No joke, according to ABC4, State Rep. Hannah Kane (R, somehow), who also sponsored the bill said, "The Women’s Caucus endorsed this bill ... because we know that there are many paths to parenthood, and our laws need to be updated to reflect the diversity of families."
Which still involves needing a mother and a father even if the kid isn't raised by either one of them or is adopted by someone else?
That is apparently what the bill is about because part of it has to do with the right of adoptees to know who their biological parents are and something to do with establishing legal parentage.
The part of Massachusetts' law code governing this says:
"If the mother of the child was or is married and the child's birth occurs during the marriage or within three hundred days of its termination ... complaints to establish paternity under this chapter may not be filed by a person presumed to be or alleging himself to be the father unless he is or was the mother's husband at the time of the child's birth or conception."
So this bill would also change "mother" to "person who gave birth."
I know legalese is cumbersome and meant to leave no ambiguity whatsoever, but is it really necessary in this regard? The "person who gave birth" is still a mother regardless of whether or not she views herself as a woman or the kid does not view her as their mother.
Same thing with turning "father" into "other parent." That one is dumb even by legalese standards because it does precisely the opposite of legalese's intent: it just makes things more ambiguous. If they wanted to keep this same weird dehumanizing tone, they could have said "impregnator." That one actually makes sense, but that is too much to expect from people who think this way.
It's like the lawyer's version of that joke about people rubbing pregnant women's bellies and saying "congratulations" but not doing an equivalent gesture for the dad and saying "good job."
So why do this? As Kane explained, "This bill makes significant strides toward supporting children born through assisted reproductive technology and ensures equality for LGBTQ families to establish parentage."
And somehow rebranding the very important middleman and middle-woman into the "person who gave birth" and "other parent" is supposed to accomplish that?
Back in May, Illinois passed a similar law turning plain language into clunky, awkward mouthfuls, by rebranding offenders, as in, you know, criminals, into "justice-impacted individuals."
There's a reason Shakespeare once said, "Brevity is the soul of wit."
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