The newly elected Florida House Speaker said he was just trying to use medical terminology when he repeatedly referred to pregnant women as the "host body."
Jose Oliva, a Republican politician from Miami Lakes, trotted out the phrase five times during an interview late last week while discussing abortion law.
"Well the challenge there is that there are two lives involved," Oliva said on CBS Miami.
"So, where I believe that we should stay out of people's lives, I don't believe that people's lives should be taken. It's a complex issue because one has to think, well there's a host body and that host body has to have a certain amount of rights because at the end of the day it is that body that that carries this entire other body to term. But there is an additional life there."
The phrase, which took all humanity out of the mother, was met with immediate backlash from Florida Democrats and activists.
"You'd expect to hear this offensive language in the 'Handmaid's Tale' -- not from the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives," Florida Democratic Party chair Terrie Rizzo said in a statement, calling the comments "hurtful, dehumanizing and misogynistic."
A day later, Oliva apologized for his controversial comments.
"It was an attempt to use terminology found in medical ethics writings with the purpose of keeping the discussion dispassionate," he said in a statement.
"The reaction undoubtedly shows it had the exact opposite effect. I apologize for having caused offense, my aim was the contrary. This is and will continue to be our societies greatest challenge. I strongly believe both mother and child have rights and the extent and balance of those rights remain in question. I regret my wording has distracted from the issue. My apologies to all."
While Republicans have filed several bills testing the newly conservative state Supreme Court, including one that would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be heard, abortion is not expected to be a major legislative issue this session, which begins Tuesday.
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