Brown’s Bill on ‘Pregnant Persons’ Comes Back To Haunt Him

Earlier this week, former Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, formally announced that he is seeking a comeback bid after losing last year to now Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, though he’ll have his record to contend with.

Brown is running against Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill now Vice President JD Vance’s seat, triggering a special election for next year.

POLITICO’s Adam Wren on Friday morning shared a Third Way memo of words that Democrats are being urged not to use, many of them woke terms often embraced by the left. Among them is “birthing person,” a term employed by the Biden administration instead of “woman.” Such a memo follows one released in March, also by Third Way, which cautioned Democrats to avoid “ideological purity tests.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee quickly caught on to call to mind how Brown, in sponsoring a bill on pregnancy, changed language to no longer say “women,” but rather the similarly woke term of “pregnant person.”

The National Republican Senatorial Committee added further comment for The Daily Signal. “To use the term ‘pregnant persons’ over women is completely insane. It shows how Sherrod Brown is a puppet for the woke left that he would rather fight for the left’s radical ideology than for the people of Ohio,” said NRSC Regional Press Secretary Nick Puglia.

The post shared to X references a Fox News article highlighting how then Sen. Brown “quietly” scrubbed gendered language when reintroducing the Healthy Maternity and Obstetric Medicine Act. He first introduced such a bill in 2015, when “women” was mentioned 22 times, “maternity” 19 times, and “woman” twice. According to Fox News, though, the 2023 version of the bill does not reference “women” or “woman” and contains fewer references to “maternity.”

“The later iterations of the bill solely rely on the descriptors ‘pregnant person’ and ‘pregnant individual’ rather than ‘woman,'” Fox News also mentioned.

The Daily Signal reached out to the Brown and Husted campaigns for a response on the former senator being targeted in such a way as he seeks a comeback bid.

This is not the first time that the National Republican Senatorial Committee has capitalized on Brown’s record from when he was in the Senate. The NRSC similarly targeted Brown for his views on transgender politics, including in an ad released on Monday when the former senator officially announced.

Last week, amid increased chatter that Brown was indeed running again, Republican operative Jai Chabria spoke to The Daily Signal about how “there were tens of millions of dollars spent to define [Brown] as too liberal,” which he says “will continue to stick” and is “a brand [Brown’s] got to spend just to overcome in a state that’s moved red.”

Brown’s loss, and what it meant for now Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s, D-N.Y., loss of status as the minority leader, was seen as a major loser in the 2024 elections. Moreno’s victory was meanwhile heralded by The Daily Signal as a major win, while biology had a mixed record when it comes to the wokeness above and gender ideology.

There was the election of now Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del., a male who identifies as female, but also the loss of now former Democratic Rep. Colin Allred to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in that U.S. Senate race. Allred, as did Brown, tried to run away from his record supporting boys and men participating in girls’ and women’s sports. Both were called out for it during the 2024 campaign.

Also going against Brown is the release of an Emerson College poll from Friday morning. Husted leads Brown by 50-44%, with 7% undecided. This is despite Brown having higher name recognition/favorability.

Prognosticators favor Husted as well, with Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball and Cook Political Report regarding the Brown-Husted race as “Lean Republican.”

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