‘Under Babied’: Alarming new language and double standards around the politics of birth

By Crystal Coache

Picture this: after hours of contractions, listening to the sound of multiple beeping heart monitors, the breathless he-he-whhhhooooo’s, and constant poking and prodding from nurses, you finally give birth and your doctor looks up at you and says, “Congratulations! You’ve just been babied!” 

Actually, you don’t need to use your imagination. Recently, Dr. Oz coined the term “under babied” to describe people who “have no children or fewer children than they wish to have” during a press conference to launch a new website, moms.gov. The site has already been criticized for funneling people towards anti-abortion pregnancy centers, completely ignoring the issue of Black maternal mortality, and functioning largely as pro-Trump propaganda under the guise of care and resources for mothers. None of this should come as a surprise but it should be cause for concern.

Dr. Oz heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services which pays for 41.5 percent of births per year. And his bizarre comment made plain something that many of us have clocked for a while: that despite trying to push a narrative of care, this administration continues to tie people’s worth to their ability to have babies, ignoring obvious facts about what is making childbirth and rearing so difficult. We must continue to hold this administration accountable for their lack of respect for people’s bodily autonomy, for failing to address the obvious reasons why so many people who want children are choosing not to have them, and for cherry-picking what inequities they choose to address. 

Let’s be clear: people who choose not to have children are not “under-babied.”  They are not lacking in anything and deserve more respect and dignity than is given to them by our culture and current federal government.  From Vice President J.D Vance’s childless cat lady comment to our tax system, single people continue to be penalized for daring to exist and make meaningful lives without partners or children. Some 57 percent of people without children under the age of 50 reported they don’t have them because they don’t want them, according to a 2024 Pew study. While this administration tries to troubleshoot for a so-called “birth rate crisis,” they need to leave happily child-free people out of it.

It could be worthwhile, however, to try to dig into why people are having fewer children than they wish to have—that is if the answers to that question required digging. Americans have been screaming about how unaffordable life has become.  Just recently, when asked whether Trump thinks about America’s finances when considering war in Iran, Trump literally said “No, I don’t.”  Given that there is no federally guaranteed parental leave despite bipartisan support for it, a minimum wage that people cannot live on, an affordable housing crisis, and a childcare crisis that features both the cost parents pay for childcare and the wages childcare workers make, it’s safe to say he’s not thinking about those things either.

Perhaps the most frustrating moment of gaslighting during that press conference came when Dr. Oz promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion for rural communities. Citing statistics about maternal mortality in rural vs. urban areas, Dr. Oz said,  “Your zip code should not determine your mortality rate if you’re having a baby. That is gonna change.” I was surprised to find myself agreeing with him, but the phrasing was eerily familiar.  

Twenty years ago, Teach For America used a similar phrase to recruit me into that organization, sharing that “your zip code should not determine the quality of education you receive.”  How horrifying to see that terminology borrowed by an administration that gutted the Department of Education and weakened protections around predatory student loans.  And how damning to see them illustrate that they do understand that disaggregated data helps us determine where we should focus our interventions and funding. 

This is the same administration, by the way, that has made it more difficult  to collect or analyze information about race and therefore address racial disparities – like the Black maternal mortality rate, for example.  In fact, legislation aimed at addressing the Black maternal mortality rate was stripped of the word “Black” all but one time. Why is it OK to acknowledge and try to rectify the disparities that exist between people who give birth in urban and rural communities, but not acknowledge and try to rectify the disparities between Black mothers and mothers from other racial groups? 

Dr. Oz’s “under babied” comment at the moms.gov press conference was no gaffe. It was an unintentionally honest remark of this administration’s worldview. And as alarming as the website is itself, we should all be concerned about how incredibly “under-serious” the federal government is about supporting people who want to have children, recognizing the value and dignity of those who don’t, and seeking to address maternal health outcome disparities equitably.

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