'Fetal heartbeat' in abortion laws taps emotion, not science
Source: Associated Press
‘Fetal heartbeat’ in abortion laws taps emotion, not science
By JULIE CARR SMYTH and KIMBERLEE KRUESI
April 28, 2021
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Dr. Michael Cackovic has treated his share of pregnant women. So when Republican lawmakers across the U.S. began passing bans on abortion at what they term “the first detectable fetal heartbeat,” he was exasperated.
That’s because at the point where advanced technology can detect that first flutter, as early as six weeks, the embryo isn’t yet a fetus and it doesn’t have a heart.
“You cannot hear this ’flutter,’ it is only seen on ultrasound,” said Cackovic, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, where some 5,300 babies are born each year.
-snip-
The notion that abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy “stops a beating heart” was arguably the stroke of political genius that eventually helped the measures rise above persistent constitutional concerns in the states that have backed them.
The concept’s originator, Ohio anti-abortion activist Janet Folger Porter, spoke openly about her strategy in an email to supporters last year — deftly side-stepping whether the packaging of the bill was medically true.
-snip-
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-laws-government-and-politics-health-77c9ba98c4f4ab46fdbd5bcc47b5b938
= new reply since forum marked as read
