The Trump administration’s targeting of women’s behavior as the basis for autism evokes the disgraceful mid-20th-century era of so-called refrigerator mothers, when the medical establishment widely believed and falsely claimed that autism in children was caused by cold and emotionally distant mothers.
During a CNN interview …, Dr. Natalie Crawford, a fertility physician, said, “When you have somebody who’s leading the country giving information and who’s not trained in medical facts … it can be harmful for patients.”
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Trump’s comments are yet another example of uninformed men telling women what to do with their bodies and health. By ignoring other factors that may cause autism, the president plants the blame squarely on the shoulders of pregnant women.
The president leads a pronatalist party that increasingly views women as incubators and measures their worth in the number of healthy babies they can bear.
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Trump’s blaming autism diagnoses on pregnant women’s use of a doctor-recommended drug shows this president’s blatant disregard for their well-being. It will only create confusion for women trying to protect themselves and their unborn children.
