The language itself became the story instead of the crisis it was meant to address.
In late March 2022, a New York City public health official's attempt to address one of medicine's most urgent inequities — the disproportionate death of Black and Puerto Rican infants — became entangled in a dispute over language itself. Dr. Michelle Morse, the city's chief medical officer, used different terms for different groups of mothers in a single tweet, and the asymmetry ignited a debate about whether the vocabulary of inclusion can itself become a vehicle for exclusion. The episode reveals how deeply the question of who gets to be named — and how — has become inseparable from the question of who gets to be helped.
- A tweet meant to announce expanded midwife and doula access instead became a flashpoint when 'birthing people' was applied to Black and Puerto Rican women while white women were called 'mothers' — an inversion critics called discriminatory.
- Within hours, calls for Morse's medical license revocation flooded social media, with users arguing that the asymmetry exposed a double standard hiding inside progressive language.
- The Department of Health moved quickly to contain the damage, labeling the distinction an 'oversight' and apologizing, though the explanation raised as many questions as it answered.
- Morse, already a polarizing figure for advocating race-conscious hospital admissions policies, offered no personal statement, leaving the city's health equity agenda momentarily overshadowed by the controversy surrounding its messenger.
- Beneath the language dispute lies an undeniable and devastating reality: Black and Puerto Rican infants in New York City die in their first year at three times the rate of white infants — a crisis that risks being lost in the noise of the argument about how to describe it.
On March 23, Dr. Michelle Morse, New York City's chief medical officer, announced a new initiative to expand midwife and doula access for pregnant New Yorkers — a direct response to the city's stark maternal and infant mortality disparities. But the language of her announcement quickly eclipsed its substance.
In a series of tweets, Morse described mortality rates among 'birthing people' before pivoting to note that babies born to Black and Puerto Rican 'mothers' die at three times the rate of those born to non-Hispanic white 'birthing people.' The asymmetry was immediate and jarring — one term for one group, another for the other — and critics pounced within hours. If the labels had been reversed, they argued, it would be recognized as racism without hesitation. Calls for Morse's medical license revocation followed, alongside accusations that progressive language was being wielded in ways that dehumanized the very communities it claimed to protect.
Morse is no stranger to controversy. A Black physician and the DOH's first-ever chief medical officer, she co-authored a 2021 piece advocating a 'proactively antiracist agenda for medicine,' including preferential cardiac unit admissions for Black and Latino patients to correct historical patterns of neglect — work that critics have likened to critical race theory applied to healthcare.
The Department of Health called the tweet an 'oversight' and apologized for 'inadvertently gendering' Black and Puerto Rican birthing people, without further explanation. Morse issued no personal statement.
What the episode laid bare is a genuine tension at the heart of public health communication: the language of inclusion and the language of clarity do not always move in the same direction. The underlying crisis — Black and Puerto Rican infants dying at three times the rate of white infants — is real, urgent, and rooted in decades of systemic neglect. Whether the backlash illuminated a flaw in equity-minded language or simply overwhelmed a necessary conversation remains, for now, an open question.
On March 23, Dr. Michelle Morse, the chief medical officer at New York City's Department of Health, posted a series of tweets announcing a new initiative to expand access to midwives and doulas for pregnant people across the city. The goal was straightforward: address the stark disparities in maternal and infant mortality that plague the city's poorest neighborhoods. But the language she chose to describe those disparities would consume the next several days in argument.
In one tweet, Morse wrote about the urgency of the moment, noting that mortality rates among birthing people were unacceptably high. She then pivoted to the specific crisis: babies born to Black and Puerto Rican mothers in the city die in their first year at three times the rate of babies born to non-Hispanic white birthing people. The distinction was immediate and jarring. For one group, she had used the word "mothers." For the other, she had used "birthing people."
The backlash arrived within hours. Critics seized on what they saw as an inversion of the very equity Morse claimed to champion. If a white person had called Black women "birthing persons" while reserving the word "mothers" for white women, the argument went, it would be recognized instantly as racist. Why was the inverse acceptable? Twitter users called for her medical license to be revoked. Others accused her of canceling women and of perpetuating racism under the guise of progressive language. One user reported the tweet for what she described as racism and hate speech.
Morse is a Black physician who arrived at the Department of Health in February 2021 as its first chief medical officer. She also serves as deputy commissioner for the Center for Health Equity and Community Wellness, a role that puts her at the center of the city's efforts to dismantle racial inequities in health care. She is not new to controversy on questions of race. In 2021, she co-authored an article advocating for what she called a "proactively antiracist agenda for medicine," work that critics have compared to applying critical race theory to medical practice. In that piece, she and her co-author argued that hospitals should give preferential admission to Black and Latino heart failure patients as a corrective measure, acknowledging that these patients had historically been steered toward general wards rather than specialty cardiac units.
The Department of Health's response came swiftly. A spokesman called the tweet an "oversight" and apologized for what he described as inadvertently gendering Black and Puerto Rican birthing people. The statement did not elaborate on what that meant or how the error had occurred. Morse did not issue a personal statement.
The incident sits at the intersection of two genuine crises in American medicine. The first is real: Black and Puerto Rican infants in New York City face a mortality rate three times higher than that of white infants, a disparity rooted in decades of systemic neglect, medical racism, and the social determinants of health. The second is the question of how to talk about that crisis in a way that both honors the specificity of who is affected and maintains clarity about what is being discussed. Morse's tweet, whatever her intent, suggested that the two goals might be in tension—that the language of equity and the language of clarity could pull in opposite directions. Whether that tension is real or merely perceived, the backlash made clear that many New Yorkers believed something had gone wrong.
Notable Quotes
Mortality rates of birthing people are too high, and babies born to Black and Puerto Rican mothers in this city are three times more likely to die in their first year of life than babies born to non-Hispanic White birthing people.— Dr. Michelle Morse, in her March 23 tweet
We apologize for inadvertently gendering Black and Puerto Rican birthing people.— Department of Health spokesman
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did the language choice matter so much to people? It's just terminology, isn't it?
Because language signals who you're talking about and how you see them. When you call one group "mothers" and another "birthing people," you're making a choice about which group gets the full humanity of that word. People noticed.
But wasn't Morse trying to be inclusive by using "birthing people" at all?
Possibly. But inclusive language usually applies equally. If you're going to use a clinical term, use it for everyone. If you're going to use "mothers," use it for everyone. The inconsistency is what made people angry.
What was the actual health crisis she was trying to address?
A real one. Black and Puerto Rican babies in New York die at three times the rate of white babies. That's not a language problem—that's a system failure. But her tweet seemed to obscure that by getting tangled in terminology.
Do you think she was being racist?
I think she was trying to do anti-racist work and stumbled badly. The irony is that her inconsistency made her message about racial equity harder to hear, not easier. Sometimes the most progressive intention can produce the opposite effect.
What happens now?
The Department of Health called it an oversight and apologized. But the question lingers: how do you talk about racial disparities in health without the language itself becoming the story?