Hochul Silent On Bill Erasing Moms and Dads from NY Law

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office refused to say whether she will sign Assembly Bill 8382A, which replaces “mother” and “father” with “gestating” and “non-gestating” parent in parts of state law.

When asked by The Federalist if the governor planned to sign the legislation, a spokeswoman merely promised her office would “review” the legislation and said it “appears to address technical legal issues related to surrogacy and parentage.” She accused critics of “deliberately misleading New Yorkers for political gain” with “bad-faith arguments,” but did not explain why she believes their concerns are unfounded.

“The governor believes mothers are mothers and fathers are fathers, and no legislation changes that,” she continued. Pressed by The Federalist about what she meant by that tautology, the spokeswoman did not respond. Nor would she explain whether Hochul believes there are differences between mothers and fathers, what those differences are, or whether it’s possible for men to become “mothers.”

The bill will ditch terms like “father” and “mother” across ten sections of New York law and replace them with “gender neutral language.” The New York State Assembly claims this bill is needed to update “out-dated terms” for “more encompassing term[s]” that recognize “how non-biological, non-adoptive parents can be treated as legal parents in certain circumstances.” In other words, New York is terrified of offending homosexual couples who buy children via surrogates and are not actually related to “their child.”

The state Senate passed the companion bill on June 2, after the Assembly passed it in March. Once the Assembly delivers the bill to Hochul, she will have 30 days to respond.

The bill is another instance of NY Democrats rejecting reality by erasing common-sense language.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the Gender Recognition Act in 2021, creating a third gender category, “X,” on driver’s licenses, state IDs, and birth certificates.

In 2023, Hochul signed a bill that “requir[ed] the use of gender-neutral terms in law.” “They/them” replaced masculine and feminine pronouns across thousands of state laws and policies.

Beginning in 2019 and now common in 2026, New York health care law and policy refer to pregnant or postpartum women as “pregnant persons” or “postpartum persons.” For example, one New York State website states that “Paid Prenatal Leave is only available to the pregnant person receiving health services,” and the “support person attending prenatal appointments with a pregnant person is not able to use Paid Prenatal Leave for these appointments.”

There have also been countless efforts by Democrats on the national level to separate women from their special ability to bring life into the world. Under Biden, the CDC used the term “pregnant person” instead of “pregnant woman” on their website. Around the same time, former Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., called women “birthing people” right before Mother’s Day weekend. Despite backlash from mothers feeling dehumanized, the Biden Administration kept the phrase in a 2022 budget proposal.

For years, New Yorkers led the charge of the left’s rejection of the binary sexes, and the fruit of their labor is broken families nationwide. Attacking the definition of mothers and fathers fundamentally attacked the idea of roles within the basic family unit and has already led to an overt celebration of all that is against it, including gay marriage, surrogacy, and transgenderism.

Only the traditional family structure puts children first. All the other lies from the left about what a family should or could look like serve selfish adults and ultimately harm the most vulnerable. Many studies show that this common-sense notion is true. One from the Institute for Family Studies found that children growing up with their married, biological parents are “significantly more likely to avoid poverty and prison, and to graduate from college.” Another study by the American College of Pediatricians agreed, stating that “children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, financial, and academic well-being.”

It is no secret that surrogacy enables predators and adults who seek to abuse children. Foreign nations use surrogacy to treat embryos like weapons to wield against the United States. Children should never be deprived of their natural parents for the sake of a political agenda, but that is what surrogacy does. As the founder of Them Before Us, Katy Faust wrote, “the child is the voiceless party in the arrangement who would never consent to the intentional loss of his or her mother.”