Renata Steffens
A question in this year’s Leaving Cert has sparked controversy by using the words ‘pregnant person’ rather than ‘pregnant woman’. The question was in the Leaving Certificate’s Social Education exam. It illustrated a pregnant woman and asked, “Besides taking folic acid, describe two positive lifestyle changes a pregnant person should make to protect the unborn child?”
Transgender activists believe the term ‘pregnant woman’ excludes biological women who identify as men and therefore a neutral term like ‘pregnant person’ should be used instead.
Laoise de Brún, barrister and founder of The Countess, which campaigns for women’s and children’s rights, told The Irish Catholic that “this dehumanising language insults 51% of the population,” and asked, “in order to placate whom exactly? A pregnant woman, [who] though pregnant, does not identify as female”?
“How dare the Department use the Leaving Cert to further their agenda,” Ms de Brún said. “Their statement that it was ‘inclusive’ is risible”.
She asked: “What could be more female than carrying a baby?” She said that “The lies and lack of logic are almost as insulting as the dehumanising language.”
Referring to the 2024 referendum that kept the reference to the mother in the home in the Constitution, she explained: “the people voted by an historic margin of 74% to retain the recognition of mothers and women and their work in the home ‘without which the common good could not be achieved.’”
A poll by The Countess in June 2021 “showed a majority did not support gender self-ID, [a law which allows biological men to identify as women as biological women to identify as men, based on their say-so]. This begs the question: how can the department get away with this?” She said that the Government “have no mandate and are in fact in breach of parents’ rights as primary educators under an Bunreacht.”
“The Irish people are sick and tired of this country being run as if they, the people, are just in the way of the agenda. We at The Countess will continue to fight for the dignity and safety of women and children and against the indoctrination of children.”
Meanwhile, Michael Foran, an Irish lecturer in law at Oxford University, cancelled talks on his recent book Sex, Gender Identity, and the Law due to pro-trans protestors disrupting the events. On his X page, he said, “Due to escalating disruptive protests, I have decided to cancel the remainder of these lectures. This is deeply lamentable, but the disruption has undermined the academic nature of this series. Students shouldn’t face bullying or harassment when attending academic events.”