The New Yorker draws criticism for framing pregnancy as ambiguous in essay on early testing
The New Yorker drew criticism Thursday after promoting an essay that described the binary distinction between being pregnant and not pregnant as "misleading," suggesting a woman could be "kind of pregnant, a little bit pregnant, or almost pregnant, or maybe pregnant" while still testing positive. The essay, "The Unsettling Ambiguity of Early Pregnancy" by Apoorva Tadepalli, examined what early at-home testing can and cannot tell a woman about a pregnancy's outcome, drawing on Tadepalli's account of positive tests across five pregnancies and repeated uncertainty about viability.
Key takeaways
- The New Yorker faced criticism Thursday for promoting Apoorva Tadepalli's essay 'The Unsettling Ambiguity of Early Pregnancy,' which called the binary distinction between being pregnant and not pregnant 'misleading.'
- The essay drew on Tadepalli's account of positive tests across five pregnancies and repeated uncertainty about the pregnancies' viability.
- Critics including Roxanne Hoge, Elizabeth Barcohana, and Lisa Cusack argued that uncertainty about viability does not change whether a woman is pregnant.
- The FDA says at-home tests detect the hormone hCG produced after a fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall, and that a positive result does not indicate how a pregnancy will develop.
- The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states that pregnancy begins at implantation and that viability may require further evaluation as development continues.
The New Yorker drew criticism Thursday after promoting an essay that described the binary distinction between being pregnant and not pregnant as "misleading," suggesting a woman could be "kind of pregnant, a little bit pregnant, or almost pregnant, or maybe pregnant" while still testing positive. The essay, "The Unsettling Ambiguity of Early Pregnancy" by Apoorva Tadepalli, examined what early at-home testing can and cannot tell a woman about a pregnancy's outcome, drawing on Tadepalli's account of positive tests across five pregnancies and repeated uncertainty about viability.
The magazine promoted the piece on X with language that critics said conflated the existence of a pregnancy with its prognosis. Roxanne Hoge, chair of the Los Angeles County Republican Party and a mother of four, told Fox News Digital that uncertainty over viability does not change whether a woman is pregnant. She described the essay as "a lot of words to try and pretend that a fetus is a clump of cells." Elizabeth Barcohana, California ambassador to the America First Women's initiative at the America First Policy Institute, drew the distinction more narrowly: "A woman cannot be 'a little bit pregnant.' Pregnancy is a physical, biological state that begins when a fertilized embryo implants in the uterus and triggers a chemical hormonal reaction." Barcohana said the piece was actually about whether a woman knows her pregnancy is viable, not about whether she is pregnant.
What the tests actually detect
The Food and Drug Administration says at-home pregnancy tests work by detecting human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), a hormone produced after a fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall. The agency notes that testing too early can produce inaccurate results and that a positive result does not provide information about how a pregnancy will develop. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states that pregnancy begins at implantation and that viability may require further evaluation as development continues.
Lisa Cusack, president of the Don't L.A. My Burbank PAC, told Fox News Digital she read the framing as an attempt to make pregnancy a subjective experience to justify abortion. "Women have always known that early pregnancies sometimes don't take or show up on tests, but that doesn't change the fact that you're either pregnant or not," she said.
Barcohana added that The New Yorker's promotional framing may have done the author a disservice. She said Tadepalli was addressing something real for women navigating pregnancy after loss, and that editors "hijacked" the piece with a provocative headline that shifted its focus. Fox News Digital reached out to The New Yorker for comment and had not received a response by publication time.
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Filed by the newsroom of MarketPR on September 18, 2026. Source: foxnews.com. Indicative figures are not investment advice.