Senator Tammy Duckwork (D-IL) proudly carried her newborn daughter onto the Senate floor last week, after being the first Senator to give birth while in office. This is a feat no male Senator has accomplished, nor even tried. Duckworth was immediately lauded by women across the country for normalizing working motherhood, eliminating the wage gap, and instituting universal child care. When asked to comment, a spokeswoman for the Senator said, “I’m not quite sure she did all that. But the baby is latching on nicely, so there’s that good news.”
Duckworth’s male colleagues found the event slightly less inspirational. After making googly noises to the baby, one prominent Senator commented, “We’ll let it on the Senate floor, but I’ll be damned if we’ll let it vote.”
A member of the Senate Subcommittee on Health and Human Disservices, though deep in deliberations on moving funding for Planned Parenthood to the Pentagon, took time to comment, “I was flabbergasted when I heard that a Senator had given birth. I don’t know nothin’ bout birthin’ babies. And I don’t want to know. To think that she somehow expelled a small human being from her body….excuse me, I need some air.”
A Vice Chairman of the Old White Man’s Caucus was cautious about the precedent Duckworth has set, “So I guess now we’re running a day-care center. I’ll tell you right now, I’ve never changed a diaper and I’m not about to start.” When asked how the chamber would respond to Duckworth breast-feeding on the Senate floor, he said, “Good God, please no. That’s disgusting! Why on earth would she do a thing like that! What is this world coming to?”
In response to the new arrival, all pending legislation in the upper chamber has been delayed while Republican leaders hammer out an amendment to Senate Rules that would forbid any reference to a woman’s lady parts on the Senate floor.
Other Republicans were more sanguine, viewing the event as a political gain, “This surely means the Democratic Senator from Illinois will be less productive, which can only be good for the GOP. We’re already in discussions on how much to reduce her pay.”