The New Yorker Essay on Pregnancy Sparks Conservative Criticism

The New Yorker has drawn criticism following the promotion of an essay that suggests the distinction between being pregnant and not pregnant is "misleading," proposing that a woman can be "kind of pregnant" or "a little bit pregnant."

The essay, titled "The Unsettling Ambiguity of Early Pregnancy" by Apoorva Tadepalli, explores the uncertainties surrounding early pregnancy tests, miscarriage, and viability, drawing on the author's experiences with pregnancy loss and her current pregnancy.

Critics argue that the essay's framing and The New Yorker's promotion of it distort the biological definition of pregnancy. Roxanne Hoge, chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party, stated that while she sympathizes with the emotional challenges of early pregnancy, the uncertainty of viability does not alter the fact of being pregnant. "You're either pregnant or you're not," Hoge told Fox News Digital.

Similarly, Elizabeth Barcohana, California Ambassador for the America First Women's initiative at the America First Policy Institute, asserted that pregnancy is a biological state beginning with implantation. She contended that the essay's premise addresses the uncertainty of a pregnancy's viability rather than the state of being pregnant itself. "The New Yorker’s editors betrayed the author with this provocative headline, because what she’s really talking about — in a vulnerable way that millions of women can empathize with — is the utility and impact on women of unreliable early testing," Barcohana said.

Lisa Cusack, president of the Don’t L.A. My Burbank PAC, viewed the essay's framing as an attempt to subjectiveize pregnancy, arguing that early testing uncertainties do not change the biological reality. "The fact that an at-home pregnancy isn’t sophisticated enough to pick up the beginning stages of every pregnancy doesn’t mean you’re ‘kind of pregnant,’ or that pregnancy itself, which literally begins with conception and ends with birth, is ‘nonlinear,’" Cusack told Fox News Digital.

The Food and Drug Administration explains that at-home pregnancy tests detect the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which is produced after a fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall. The agency notes that testing too early can lead to inaccurate results, and a positive test does not indicate how a pregnancy will develop.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists defines pregnancy as beginning with implantation, while viability requires further evaluation as development progresses. The New Yorker did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.