Pennsylvania Democrats ERASE “Mother” and “Woman” From State Health Code — Replaced With “Postpartum Individual” in Radical Gender Ideology Push

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s administration is quietly attempting to erase women and mothers from the Commonwealth’s health code in the name of radical gender ideology.

Buried inside a sweeping 502-page regulatory proposal from the Pennsylvania Department of Health are multiple revisions that strike the words “woman” and “mother” and replace them with dehumanizing, gender-neutral terms such as “individual” and “postpartum individual.”

The changes were first uncovered by The Daily Wire. The proposed overhaul of 28 Pa. Code Chapter 27, which governs communicable and noncommunicable diseases, was published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on August 8.

The Shapiro administration apparently believes the words “mother” and “woman” are now too offensive for Pennsylvania’s official health regulations.

You simply cannot make this up. Under the proposed changes:

• “Pregnant woman” becomes “pregnant individual.”
• “Mother of a newborn” becomes “postpartum individual.”
• “Mother of stillborn” is replaced with “case of stillbirth,” while references to the mother are changed to “postpartum individual.”
• A “mother’s medical record” becomes a “postpartum individual’s medical record.”
• Language referring to medical professionals attending women during childbirth is rewritten to say they attend “individuals.”

Democrats in Pennsylvania have REMOVED the words “mother” and “woman” in a new health code proposal and replaced them with the terms “postpartum individual” and “individual”

They want to ERASE women and motherhood from society in pursuit of radical gender ideology. pic.twitter.com/49GhU0yA9e

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 27, 2026

The proposal even changes the health code’s definition of perinatal HIV exposure. The existing language referring to a “pregnant woman or mother of a newborn” would be replaced with “a pregnant or postpartum individual.”

In another section governing syphilis testing following a stillbirth, the word “mother” is repeatedly crossed out and replaced with “postpartum individual.”

This is not merely an effort to simplify outdated legal language. The proposal deliberately removes sex-specific terms from regulations dealing exclusively with pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum care, biological realities unique to women.

Pennsylvania Republican State Senator Michele Brooks reportedly blasted the changes, pointing out that the Department of Health managed to inject radical gender language into hundreds of pages of new government mandates.

Women become pregnant. Mothers give birth. No amount of bureaucratic wordplay from the Shapiro administration can change those basic biological facts.

But this is what the radical left does. First, it demands that Americans accept absurd terminology. Then it embeds that terminology into government regulations, schools, hospitals, and official records. Finally, it treats anyone who refuses to participate in the fantasy as a bigot.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that New York Democrats passed legislation replacing “mother” and “father” with “gestating parent” and “non-gestating parent”.

Now Shapiro’s Pennsylvania is following the same disturbing playbook.

The proposed Pennsylvania regulations are not yet final. According to the Independent Regulatory Review Commission, the proposal was formally received on June 4, published on August 8, and remains open for public comment through September 21, 2026.

The broader proposal updates disease-reporting requirements and other public-health provisions. Yet somewhere inside that massive regulatory rewrite, Shapiro’s health officials decided it was necessary to scrub “woman” and “mother” from provisions specifically addressing pregnancy and childbirth.

That decision was ideological, not medical.

Mothers are not “postpartum individuals.” Pregnant women are not faceless “individuals.”

This is not inclusion. It is the deliberate erasure of women, motherhood, and biological reality by a Democrat administration captured by the most radical elements of the gender-identity movement.