On the heels of the Supreme Court decision to allow the Texas Heartbeat Act to stand, abortion advocates have been working frantically to undermine it. From comparisons to terrorists to fretting about more disabled preborn babies being allowed to live, there is seemingly no tactic the abortion industry won’t use try to convince the public that the Texas Heartbeat Act is bad. Unsurprisingly, this includes lying about the indisputable science behind prenatal development, and the media has been doing it for years (see examples here, here, and here).
Newsweek reported on the issue by claiming that at six weeks gestation, it’s not really a heartbeat, citing an interview with Dr. Saima Aftab in Live Science.
According to Aftab, the heartbeat detected on an ultrasound is “a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby,” and further claimed this was due to the firing of electrical signals, nothing more. “The flutter is different from what we picture as a beating heart and can’t be heard by doctors via a stethoscope,” Newsweek continued. “When a doctor listens to a patient’s heartbeat with a stethoscope what they are detecting is the opening and closing of cardiac valves. Valves that don’t yet exist at this stage of development.”
Newsweek further pointed to Dr. Jennifer Gunter, a notorious former abortionist who has called preborn children zombies and made spurious claims regarding preborn children and abortion survivors. Gunter, Newsweek reported, told Planned Parenthood, “The politicians know exactly what they are doing as [the term ‘heartbeat’] is a way of making a 4 mm thickening next to a yolk sac seem like it is almost ready to walk.”
Is this the case, or is it abortion proponents who are making it seem like killing a human being with a heartbeat is of no more consequence than clipping a toenail?
Another example is the Texas Tribune, which claimed that “the reference to a heartbeat at that stage of pregnancy is medically inaccurate, as an embryo does not have a developed heart at six weeks gestation.” This was quickly rebutted by Dr. Tara Sander Lee, who slammed the Tribune for their “complete ignorance of science.”
THREAD: @TexasTribune showcasing complete ignorance of science. All it takes is one quick search of the public database of scientific literature! The first article — in the opening lines of its introduction — says it all. https://t.co/HeCdkJ3I6A. 1/3 https://t.co/IdcDw7yXU7 pic.twitter.com/lFw63NPllZ
— Dr. Tara Sander Lee (@DrTaraSanderLee) September 2, 2021
“At 6 weeks, a preborn baby’s heart is beating rhythmically and the heart can easily be identified,” she wrote. “Texas is following the science, and as a result, more babies will live to see their first birthday.”
She also shared a video from the Endowment for Human Development, a non-partisan organization dedicated to improving health science education, and which has a vow of neutrality on controversial bioethical issues like abortion. The video clearly shows blood pumping through the heart, the chambers changing color as the blood flows.
As the EHD explains, the heart begins beating at just three weeks after fertilization — and it’s not a random muscle spasm. The circulatory system has formed and is functioning, with a two-chambered heart that is pumping blood. The heart becomes four-chambered just three weeks later, six weeks after fertilization. According to EHD, the circulatory system is necessarily formed first because without blood flowing, the child cannot continue to grow and thrive.
The American Pregnancy Association likewise affirms that the heart is formed by the third gestational week, with blood flowing through the veins.
It’s clearly uncomfortable for abortion activists to accept the reality of a preborn child so young with a functioning heart; it forces them to see the preborn child as a living human being who is being killed in the womb. Yet this is the reality of abortion: it takes a human life and stops a beating heart.
“Like” Live Action News on Facebook for more pro-life news and commentary!
