Resurfaced comments made by Republican Vice Presidential candidate, JD Vance, are causing a stir online. Now, a Black veteran is weighing in and adding some nuance to the much talked about clip. In the video from Vance’s 2021 appearance on FOX News, he explained his stance on the rights of women without children.
“We’re effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via the corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” Vance said. “If you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
The clip resurfaced following President Joe Biden’s decision to bow out of the presidential race and back Vice President Kamala Harris. It caused a firestorm online especially across social media platforms. Both the childless women and parents are calling the comments disrespectful and unreasonable. Author and disabled veteran Charlynda Scales weighed in on TikTok. Scales is a mother who dealt with infertility for five years. She believes it was due in part to her military service.
“There’s a subset of citizens that have experienced infertility at a larger rate than the rest of the nation,” Scales said in her video.
She then showed a green screen of a NBC News article about members of the military fighting for infertility rights. The subheading of the article reads, “Though infertility rates may be far higher for service members than civilians, the military makes them prove their infertility is service-related before it covers the high cost of IVF.” In her video, Scales also shows a Congressional Research Service report on infertility in the military. According to the report, infertility diagnoses were highest among non-Hispanic Black service members over age 30.
“I looked at high ranking military officers and I noticed that a large percentage of the women that I admired had no kids. Because if you’re going to compete, if you’re going to rise through the ranks you’re going to have to take deployments. You had to take high stress assignments,” Scales explained. “That high stress and all of those factors can lead to infertility.”
Scales closed her video with a bipartisan call for sensitivity and empathy. She feels the ‘childless cat lady’ statement is a slap in the face to those whose service to their country may have impacted their fertility.
“Whatever side of the aisle that you’re on, if you’re talking to the American public, read the room,” she said. “Know who you’re talking to. Because there are people who have served this country. They love, love their country and they have sacrificed so much. In fact, they have sacrificed their ability to have children to uphold the constitution of the United States of America.”