In an article published by the New York Times (NYT) ironically on Valentine’s Day asserting that living human embryos have no heart, the author demonstrates how journalists have abandoned the intended purpose of having a free press.
A free press was created and given constitutional protections in order to be society’s watchdog on government and other relevant entities. Instead, the majority of our media today has become the lapdog for special interest groups and particular political persuasions, and has completely abandoned reporting in a balanced, truthful, and unbiased manner.
I will agree with a statement made early in the article by the author.
She says, “language has long been a battleground in the political struggle over abortion …”
Her article is no exception to this statement.
Supporters of abortion have long labored to convince the American public that abortion is something other than what it really is—the intentional killing of innocent human beings at any stage of their preborn lives in order to prevent a live birth.
You have been told that “it’s not a baby, it’s a fetus,” or “it is a clump of cells …. a clot of blood …. a lump of tissue,” and that “having an abortion is no different that having a tonsillectomy or trimming your toenails.”
Now, the mantra is “The heartbeat you see on ultrasound is not really a heartbeat.”
None of these things are true, but supporters of abortion became unmoored from reality long ago.
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For decades, textbooks and articles in the field of embryology have taught that the human embryonic heart begins to beat at about 5 ½ weeks gestation. These texts almost universally refer to this embryonic cardiac activity as a ‘heartbeat’ and have never taught that there is no heart at this stage or that there is only ‘pulsatile cardiac activity.’
Current peer-reviewed medical literature published for purposes unrelated to abortion uses the term ‘heartbeat’ without reservation. The distinction the author and others attempt to draw has only come into vogue following the passage of so-called ‘heartbeat bills’ by pro-life state legislative bodies. No one before had ever tried to argue that the beating heart which can be seen on ultrasound at 5 ½ weeks is not really a beating heart.
The author states that at this early stage in the pregnancy the embryo, “has only a primitive tube of cardiac cells that emit electrical impulses and pump blood.” (Emphasis mine)
I appreciated the beauty of her choice to insert this phrase, because it demonstrates the real truth at hand.
And that truth is this: the embryonic human heart is the first organ in the human body to begin to perform its mature function—the pumping of blood, and it does so at 5 ½ weeks gestation.
In fact, an article prepared by the University of Oxford¹ titled “First of our three billion heartbeats is sooner than we thought” tells us that a team funded by the British Heart Foundation at the University of Oxford has discovered evidence that the human heart begins to beat as early as 16 days after conception.
They discuss that it is the embryonic stage at which the heart is still tube-like, and even earlier, but they accurately use the words ‘beat’ and ‘heartbeat.’
They even tell us that it is this ‘beating’ at such an early stage that is essential for the normal development of the heart, and go on to say that the “heart is the first organ to form during pregnancy …”
In her efforts to tell us that the beating heart we see on ultrasound is not really a beating heart, the NYT author attempts to mislead by claiming that it is not a heartbeat which is detected by the ultrasound, rather, it is electrical activity, or electric impulses.
The problem with her position is this: ultrasound technology cannot detect simple electrical activity.
In order to detect electrical activity, one must use electrodes and wires and such. Ultrasonography uses sound waves that are projected into living tissue, and which are reflected back into the ultrasound probe. The ultrasound cannot detect electrical activity unless that activity is causing an action—in this case, the rhythmic beating motion of the cardiac cells that results in the pumping of blood. The motion of those cardiac cells is what is detected by the ultrasound.
She states that, “The sound expectant mothers hear during a scan is created by the machine itself, which translates the waves of electrical activity into something audible.”
In saying this, she leaves out one piece of critical information—it is not the waves of electrical activity which are being translated into something audible, it is the rhythmic beating motion of the cardiac cells which are already pumping blood that is being translated into something audible.
The author goes on to parrot typical abortion industry talking points and criticize requirements that women be told about the risks of abortion.
She engages in the same deception that abortion providers use in their informed consent documents. She asserts that abortion is safer than childbirth, that any linkage between abortion and future breast cancer has been refuted, that abortion has no impact on future pregnancies, and that abortion has no impact on mental health.
An objective review of the data which is available shows these to be false assertions.
She interviewed Dr. Christina Francis of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) for her article. Had the author taken the time to peruse AAPLOG’s public website, she would have found expertly written documents that present an objective analysis of these issues.
The position that abortion is less dangerous than childbirth is thoroughly debunked by AAPLOG’s Committee Opinion 6, Induced Abortion and the Increased Risk of Maternal Mortality. This document presents the data objectively and footnotes the data supporting this position with 97 footnoted references.
Similarly, AAPLOG’s Committee Opinion 8, Abortion and Breast Cancer explains the linkage between induced abortion and breast cancer on a physiological basis, and then cites references in 20 footnotes.
That document clearly illustrates that of the 76 studies available from around the world that have evaluated this question, 60 of them demonstrate a positive association between induced abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer. Of the 24 studies performed in the United States, 19 of them show that same association.
Those who claim to have ‘debunked’ the association between induced abortion and breast cancer chose only five of the 76 studies available to defend their indefensible claim that abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer.
The website for AAPLOG has similar documents available which clearly and objectively discuss summations of the data demonstrating links between induced abortion and subsequent mental health issues and the effects of induced abortion on future pregnancies.
Language continues to be the battleground on which the struggle between those who support the human right to life for all human beings and those who deny that the preborn are really human.
The Valentine’s Day article in the New York Times which asserts that unborn human embryos do not have hearts is no exception.
Their hysteria about the time at which there is really a heartbeat has nothing to do with the heartbeat. They play word games with the scientific reality that there is a heartbeat at 5 ½ weeks, but they cannot deny that a four-chambered heart with a heartbeat is clearly visible before the end of the first trimester.
Consider this hypothetical proposition: offer to agree with these abortion supporters on the nature of the heartbeat prior to 10 weeks and allow abortions until there is a four-chambered heart, but ban abortions after there is a four-chambered beating heart.
They would not agree with that under any circumstance, and that tells one all one needs to know about the supposed sincerity of their concern over whether or not there really is a beating heart.
Editor’s note: Dr. Brent Boles has been practicing, board-certified OB/GYN for close to three decades and is medical director for the Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN). Heartbeat International manages the APRN and Pregnancy Help News.
¹https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-10-11-first-our-three-billion-heartbeats-sooner-we-thought, accessed online 2/27/2022 at 1829 EST.
