Renaming of midwives branded ‘ideological nonsense’

A paper calling for a gender-neutral replacement for the term ‘midwife’ has been slammed by women’s rights campaigners.

Dr John Peddleton from the University of Northampton and Dr Sally Pezaro from Coventry University, called for midwives to be known as ‘Lead Perinatal Practitioner’, and for the Royal College of Midwives to also change its name.

Campaigners warned that rather than being a step towards equality, the proposals would further undermine biological reality in the name of ‘inclusion’.

An ‘inclusive’ title

The new research paper claims the word ‘midwife’ “upholds patriarchy” and leads to the “subordination of all who give birth”, whereas the term ‘lead perinatal practitioner’ would ‘liberate’ them.

It states: “As trans and non‐binary people increasingly require access to midwifery services, this paper proposes an alternative professional title that is inclusive”.

The academics wrote that the proposed word ‘perinatal’ should encompass “not just the birthing person but also the neonate”.

‘Adult human female’

Kellie-Jay Keen, founder of Let Women Speak, told MailOnline: “This is just further erasure of the word ‘woman’.”

She said: “When you erase a word, you can do it in a couple of ways. One way is to make it cease to mean the significant thing that it means – so in this case, it would cease to mean an actual woman.”

Keen continued: “You can also erase it by making lots of things mean the word ‘woman’, which is a really effective way of making the word meaningless. So it means everything and yet you can’t use it for the thing that it really means, which is an adult human female.”

She explained that the use of terms like “birthing person” is yet another example of “erasing women-type language”.

Transgender ideology

Midwifery lecturer at the University of the West of England, Anna Melamed, said: “It is women as a sex category who are pregnant and give birth, regardless of how they identify”.

She added: “Midwives are one of the few professions who proudly and clearly stand by and on the side of the woman.”

Helen Joyce, from women’s rights charity Sex Matters, commented: “Maternity services are under enough pressure without ideological nonsense being foisted on them.”

A former midwife observed on social media: “I looked after mothers and babies. I was certainly not a lead perinatal practitioner. What a load of gobbledegook.”