The 'fetal heartbeat' that defines Texas' new abortion laws doesn't exist, say doctors

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Newly passed laws in Texas mean that people cannot have an abortion after six weeks - the point where a "fetal heartbeat" appears, and the point before most people know they're pregnant.

However, doctors are coming forward to say that the "fetal heartbeat" isn't a real medical point in fetal development, casting doubt on the credibility of the Fetal Heartbeat Bill.

Heartbeats in humans produce thump-thump sounds caused by the opening and closing of the heart's valves.

However, in conversation with NPR, Dr. Nisha Verma, an OB-GYN who specializes in abortion care and works at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says that that heartbeat doesn't exist in 6-week old fetuses.

"At six weeks of gestation, those valves don't exist," she told the news site.

In fact, it takes about 9-10 weeks for these valves to form.

"The flickering that we're seeing on the ultrasound that early in the development of the pregnancy is actually electrical activity, and the sound that you 'hear' is actually manufactured by the ultrasound machine." Dr. Verma added.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fetal-heartbeat-defines-texas-abortion-121000668.html

[Goonch]

1. Size of a pea

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. Not to mention, at that stage of development

the human fetus looks like every other vertebrate. Human, chicken, elephant - they all pretty much look alike, and no matter what some women say, fetal movement (quickening) cannot be felt until halfway through the pregnancy (20 weeks) when the fetus weighs about a pound.

https://perinatology.com/Reference/Fetal%20development.htm#:~:text=The%20average%20fetus%20at%2029,3.9%20pounds%20(1751%20grams)%20.

[crazylikafox]

2. Can't have a heartbeat if you don't have a heart

[poli-junkie]

3. K&R, nt

[rickyhall]

4. Don't forget, "Ignorance is Bliss".

When these ignorant fuckers get sick, let them die, it's what they want, ain't it.

[Hortensis]

6. They don't care. There is detectable cardiac activity, and

the law's wording covers that. "Heartbeat"s thrown in as a rallying lie for anti-abortion voters.

Reminds me of Justice Gorsuch claiming that health departments allowing liquor stores to remain open while closing or limiting church services is discrimination against religion. Truth, science, morality, rationality, responsibility all irrelevant.

[SharonClark]

7. Like the 1" feet lapel pins they used to wear.

A friend testified against a state legislature's anti-abortion legislation in the 80's and wore a woman's size 7 pin she created. It took awhile for the repugnants to get her point.

[mnhtnbb]

8. The details of development are not the point.

Pro choice supporters and activists should not let themselves be sidetracked from the real issue, which is the authority for women to make their own decisions about their own bodies. Nobody else.

[Hortensis]

9. They are actually the vital point all else hangs on.

Reproduction is ALL about starting with one mother and fertilized egg(s) and ending up with two (or more) people.

There's enormous disagreement, scientific, religious, philosophical, etc, about WHEN and UNDER WHAT CONDITIONS the life of that second person has to be protected, but absolutely no disagreement that, if not interrupted, life develops until two people with two bodies exist.

Pretending that only the one who can pay and speak for herself exists is how people got away with such unspeakable atrocities as dismembering fully developed babies to keep them from being born. Yes, of course it was made illegal. Horrible that it had to be, but some people will always do monstrous things if society allows them to get away with them.

Details of development -- lack of it and/or maldevelopment -- are how moral and decent people try their very best to understand when, and under what conditions, abortion should be considered an elective procedure affecting only one person and when it should be considered murder.

[dpibel]

10. Seriously?

You are fronting the canard that late-term abortion has ever been used as a matter of convenience? That it has ever been used in any but the most extreme circumstances having to do with the viability either of the mother or the fetus?

I think I have heard that story elsewhere. But I would not expect to see it on DU.

[mnhtnbb]

12. Thank you.

It's not only Republicans who disrespect the rights of women to have legal authority to make their own reproductive decisions.

An essay on the whole partial birth abortion brouhaha promoted by the anti choice folks. https://www.npr.org/2006/02/21/5168163/partial-birth-abortion-separating-fact-from-spin

[Hortensis]

14. Abortion must be performed before two people are involved.

Insisting that only the mother's choice for her one body matters is an extremist position.

Insisting that personhood begins at conception is an extremist position.

Moral and responsible members of society guard the rights of every person, who must be protected from ideologues holding extreme views who will not and/or cannot.

This issue is especially complex, and even science doesn't agree on when one person becomes two. But at some point it happens.

Democratic Party believes in and protects all human rights. It's our thing.

[mnhtnbb]

15. We disagree. Strongly disagree.

And I resent your inference that I am not a moral and responsible person and an idealogue because I disagree with you.

You also do not speak for the totality of the Democratic Party when you insist that women must allow others without standing or subject to damages to set the legal boundaries for the access to safe and legal abortion.

The anti-choice brigade is ecstatic over the thought they might finally be able to eliminate the right of women to make their own reproductive health care decisions. And how did we get there? By not standing firm that it was nobody's business but the woman and the people SHE--not the state, not a political party, not the Catholic Church, not the rapist, not the busybody next door-- chose to involve in her decision.


https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/25/us/politics/abortion-laws-2020-democrats.html

By the way, abortion is always performed before there are two people involved: birth is required to generate a second person. That is when a birth certificate is issued and a second person is given legal standing. I agree with that concept. I do not believe that human life in utero should be given legal standing as a "person" prior to birth.

[dpibel]

16. Well, that's never been the case

Roe, as I'm sure you know, set out a trimester system which defined how much state regulation was permitted. The current undue burden test is a refinement of that system, based on advances in medicine.

But there has never been a test that said, "Abortion is legal until there are two persons," which is what you claim.

There have always been exceptions--including in the third trimester--for the health of the mother and, in most states, in cases where the fetus is so severely defective that it would survive only for a short time after birth.

I'd like to clarify my earlier response to your post #9. You said:

"Pretending that only the one who can pay and speak for herself exists is how people got away with such unspeakable atrocities as dismembering fully developed babies to keep them from being born. Yes, of course it was made illegal. Horrible that it had to be, but some people will always do monstrous things if society allows them to get away with them."

"Dismembering fully developed babies to keep them from being born" is pure, unadulterated, anti-choice hyperbolic rhetoric. If such a thing ever happened, it was to save the life of the mother. Otherwise, late-term abortion (which is what your rhetoric is directed at), as I said above, was not of "fully developed babies," but, rather, of fatally undeveloped babies. You may, I guess, want to put a person through the danger of childbirth in order to allow a child to live for a few hours in a vegetative state, with no hope of life. That seems a bit of an extreme position to me.

It has always baffled me that there seem to be people who believe that a person might carry a fetus for, oh, eight months and then suddenly say, "Fuck it. Too much trouble. I'm aborting." Seriously? And, of course, those of you who tell this story can give no examples of that ever happening.

Finally, you say, "even science doesn't agree on when one person becomes two." Well, that's some more rhetorical trickery. Because that's not a question that science tries to answer. "Personhood" is not a scientific concept; it's a legal one. Science can tell us, within a range, when a fetus becomes viable. And if you want to argue about the meaning of that, have at it. But your "personhood" test exists in your mind, and not in the scientific or legal analysis. It does, however, exist in the world of those who want to control women's bodies.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

11. The "fetal heartbeat" at the heart of TX's abortion law isn't a heartbeat

Link to tweet

[pansypoo53219]

13. sorry. NOISES do not count. if it aint a heart beat it aint a heart beat.

science matters.