A furious mother has spoken out and called out the government after she was branded as her newborn baby’s birthing parent rather than a mother.
Sall Grover from Gold Coast, Australia, is a new mom who lashed out at the government after being told to fill out an “alienating” healthcare form on which she was referred to as her child’s birthing parent.
According to the reports, some hospitals across Australia have already adopted the updated form that is used to submit newborn babies’ details to Medicare.
As seen in the photo of the form, the document requires a “birthing parent’s full name” and “birthing parent’s signature” instead of “mother’s name” and “mother’s signature.”
“Attention women in Australia: On the form to put our newborn baby on our Medicare card, we are referred to as ‘birthing parent,’” Grover wrote on Twitter.
“Enough is enough. This absolute bull— is exclusionary, alienating and derogatory towards every woman who wants to be and is called mother.
“I know enough what is happening at the moment with women’s rights, and the erosion of our language and spaces, so I know where it’s coming from.”
After her post went viral, Grover was also invited to speak out on the Today Show where she doubled down on her thoughts and suggested the new forms were made only to please lobbyists and activists who represent a minority of the population.
“Motherhood is about so much more than that, it is every other day from then, you have your first few days of excitement, being part of that and then you see ‘birthing parent,’ are you reducing the role of me getting her here,” Grover told the TV hosts.
“If the word ‘mother’ bothers you so much, I mean motherhood is going to be quite a shock. Get help, go and deal with it if the word ‘mother’ bothers.”
While host Karl Stefanovic appeared to agree with the new mom as he said the new forms were a result of a “bureaucracy gone crazy,” host Ally Langdon admitted she was left divided.
“I feel divided about it if I’m perfectly honest. As someone who does identify as a mother, I see that and it’s sort off-putting to see birthing parent. It’s dehumanizing to me,” she said.
Langdon added: “But I understand when the surrogate and, you know, it’s not one bill fits all.”
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