Stacey Abrams Corrected Abortion Misinformation, and Republicans Lost Their Minds

[Nevilledog]

https://jezebel.com/stacey-abrams-corrected-abortion-misinformation-and-re-1849569712

On a panel this week in Atlanta, Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams fact-checked the popular anti-abortion claim that a fetus has a heartbeat at six weeks of pregnancy. Conservatives call their bills banning abortion after that point “heartbeat bans,” and plenty of media outlets still use the term, even though it’s medically incorrect.

“There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks,” Abrams said. “It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body away from her.”

Conservatives, of course, immediately lost their shit, with Fox’s Will Cain calling the statement “QAnon-plus level.”

Link to tweet

But Abrams is correct that there’s no real heartbeat that early in pregnancy. Not only do six-week embryos not have hearts, but the sound of pulsing cells that will eventually become a heart “is created by the [ultrasound] machine itself, which translates the waves of electrical activity into something audible,” per the New York Times. It is, really and truly, a manufactured sound.

The sound wasn’t invented for the purpose of controlling people’s bodies, but anti-abortion advocates certainly use it for that purpose now. The crusade started with laws that mandate pre-abortion ultrasounds and continued with crisis pregnancy centers that prey on women who are pregnant and scared, before later morphing into a campaign to pass “heartbeat” bills.

*snip*

[Walleye]

1. OK, let's see an ultrasound picture of a heart on a six week old fetus

[SheltieLover]

3. Inconvenient

Stick head in sand (or up own ass!).

[Celerity]

10. it isn't even a foetus at 6 weeks, it is still an embryo, it's at 8 weeks when it becomes a foetus

and there is no formed heart at 6 weeks (as I am sure you know)

https://www.livescience.com/65501-fetal-heartbeat-at-6-weeks-explained.html

[Walleye]

11. The whole Republican Party has lost their fucking mind

[SheltieLover]

2. How dare a woooman of color contradict their lies!

Goooooooo Stacey!!!

[Lonestarblue]

13. How dare any woman have an opinion about what she can do with her own body!

I’m so sick of these wackos who think they have the right to control all women. If right-wing white evangelical women wish to allow men to control their every decision, fine. That’s their problem, maybe from too much daddy worship. The rest of the world wants nothing to do with that fake religion and fake medicine. A fetus dies not have a heart at six weeks. Ask any real medical doctor instead of the charlatans posting as concerned legislators who are salivating at the opportunity to punish all women for being the evil temptresses they imagine in their wet dreams.

[underpants]

4. Okay I did NOT know that

I had no idea.

[Deuxcents]

6. Me, either. I'm glad Ms Abrams set the facts

For sure, heads are gonna explode 🤯.

[gratuitous]

7. Me neither, at least the "heartbeat" sound part

Which is why I would check with medical experts before presuming to make a law about something I didn't know. If I was a legislator, that is.

[underpants]

8. Yeah I just took that as I was told.

Amazing.

[soldierant]

22. I suspect if you had thought about it

you wold have realized that in a being the size of a six week old embroyo, if there were a heart, it wouldn't be much larger than a seed bead, if at all.

I knew the pulses weren't a heartbeat, but I didn;t know the ultrasound generated them. Had I been asked, I would have said it magnified them.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

5. Surely there will be legitimate tv news reporting on this.

Roe, Roe, Roe your vote
against theocracy!
Republicans revoke your rights
and kill democracy!

THESE are the races that will determine control of the House of Representatives:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217175231

Stick 'em up for a blue wave: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217078977

[ancianita]

9. That right there is the reason she should be governor of GA. She will govern by facts,

regardless of male power and privileging interests and systems.

[Rhiannon12866]

12. Twitter replies:

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[JanMichael]

14. While she is correct...I don't care if one is heard at 5 months. Irrelevant.

[dchill]

20. Yep. A herring by any other name would still be as red.

[niyad]

15. I used to tell the woman-hating gestational slavers protesting at our local Planned

Parenthood, showing "pictures" of fully developed 8 or 9 week old fetuses, that I could do photoshop, too, and much better. When the person insisted that this had been seen by a person present during the abortion, I said, "Fine. Give me that person's name. There are criminal charges for violating a person's privacy like that. And their medical privileges should be revoked." For some reason, they kept giving signs warding off the evil eye.

[BlueSky3]

37. Thanks for doing this --

Wish I’d been there to see that conversation.

[niyad]

38. That was one of my somewhat "polite" responses. For a time, several friends

and I counter-protested the idiots. We would sing the Monty Python "Every Sperm Is Sacred" as they earnestly recited their rosaries. I lodged complaints about open alcohol, demanding that the priest who organized these idiots and served communion be arrested. We did guerilla theater. We finally stopped when the PP moved to another location. . the one where Robert Dear killed three people on Black Friday.

[Ilsa]

16. My preference would have been for her to have stopped after

"...manufactured sound." She could have called the manufactured sound a marketing gimmick.

[Brainfodder]

17. I still draw the line at whatever # of weeks Chuck Grassley is....+1.

Thank you!

[dchill]

21. As good a place as any for the line.

[Farmer-Rick]

26. Hehe

Made me crack up.

Thanks for the chuckle.

[BobTheSubgenius]

18. Whenever I hear or read the phrase "Republicans lost their minds..."

my mind always fills in "But as sick as they are, how far could they get?"

[underpants]

25. 👍

[tdrake]

30. Yet, they always find a deeper low.

[dchill]

19. "It is, really and truly, a manufactured sound."

Kinda like Fox "News."

[Beartracks]

24. Ba-dum-dum. Tsss!

===========

[Beartracks]

23. So many Republican policies are based on some ignorant thing they convince themselves is true. n/t

[Kath2]

27. Thank you, Stacey!

Excellent and accurate point that you make.

But regardless of heartbeats, I believe the pregnant woman or girl should have precedence over the fetus.

[crickets]

28. I cannot wait to vote for Stacey Abrams.

She is intelligent, informed, and ready to serve the people. We need her in GA - go Stacey!

[Farmer-Rick]

29. So, this discussion has taught me 2 things

Aside from the obvious there is no heart beat at six week.

1. The zygote or fetus age is calculated from a woman's last period which may include 2 weeks of not being pregnant.

"But first, a quick primer on how pregnancy weeks are calculated, because there are multiple ways of counting this time. One way is to count from fertilization, or when sperm meets egg. Fertilization dates, however, are not usually known, so pregnancy is more often measured from the last menstrual period. This way of counting, which is also termed gestational age, includes approximately two weeks prior to conception. As a result, a six-week pregnancy by this measure includes only about four weeks of actually being pregnant. A normal pregnancy lasts approximately 40 weeks."

2. And the so called heart goes through some major changes from a tube to something resembling a heart but it doesn't function as a true heart until a full nine weeks and a day after fertilization.

"Very soon after the tube forms, some cells of the tube begin to spontaneously contract, creating the first heartbeat, although the heart tube may not pump blood for another day or two. Textbooks and papers also peg this to approximately 21-23 days after fertilization, or what would be five completed weeks of pregnancy, or a few days into the sixth week.

Chamber and valve formation take about three weeks to wrap up. Based on 3D imaging of human embryos, scientists are able to identify all of the major structures after nine weeks and one day of pregnancy, when the entire process is largely complete."

Only after nine weeks does a fetus have a human shaped heart. And a similar human like heart beat.

https://www.factcheck.org/2019/07/when-are-heartbeats-audible-during-pregnancy/

Oh the lies the GOP and Supremely Religious Court must tell to keep a woman's womb in America under their control.

[betsuni]

31. K&R

[LakeArenal]

32. Heart beat no heart beat. Still remains NO ONE ELSE'S BUSINESS. NONE. NADA.

[love_katz]

33. I love Stacey Abrams.

With that said, all of these forced birth laws ignore the living woman who has her own heart beat. It is all about control, oppression, and fanatical religious dictatorship.

[TreasonousBastard]

34. I still don't know what the point was in manufacturing that sound.

[Atticus]

35. FYI:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/09/02/1033727679/fetal-heartbeat-isnt-a-medical-term-but-its-still-used-in-laws-on-abortion

[KS Toronado]

36. So, when FQX's Will Cain says "QAnon-plus level."

Is he admitting Qanon puts out conspiracy theories?