A meme attributing the statement “Every American woman has a duty to birth at least one able-bodied worker” to Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has gone viral. However, this claim is false. Snopes has not found any instance of Johnson saying these words. The meme appears to stem from an inaccurate paraphrase of a statement Johnson made about Roe v. Wade during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
During the hearing, Johnson argued that if women were compelled to bring more “able-bodied workers” into the world, Republicans wouldn’t need to make cuts to Social Security and Medicare. This argument was made in the context of discussing Supreme Court ethics and the implications of Roe v. Wade legalizing abortion.
Viral versions of a video of Johnson’s remarks circulating in October and November 2023 omitted a middle paragraph that provided important context. In the full video, Johnson expressed his belief that Roe v. Wade allowed for the “elective killing of unborn children” and lamented the loss of over 63 million American lives as a result. He also highlighted the impact of this loss on the economy, suggesting that having more able-bodied workers would alleviate strain on programs like Social Security and Medicare.
The shorter version of Johnson’s remarks in the viral video led to paraphrases and memes that inaccurately attributed the statement “Every American woman has a duty to birth at least one able-bodied worker” to him. One post on social media even compared Johnson to Chinese President Xi, falsely claiming that Johnson made a similar statement.
The only media source that attributed the quote as it appears in memes to Johnson is a local NPR affiliate, which quoted a local LGBTQ activist who repeated the characterization. However, because the underlying source for this quote does not use these words, the claim that Johnson said them is false.
In conclusion, the claim that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said “Every American woman has a duty to birth at least one able-bodied worker” is false. The statement is an inaccurate paraphrase of Johnson’s remarks about Roe v. Wade during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.
