Heartbeat bill

A six-week abortion ban, also called a "fetal heartbeat bill" by proponents, is a law in the United States which makes abortion illegal as early as six weeks gestational age (two weeks after a woman's first missed period), which is when proponents claim that a "fetal heartbeat" can be detected.[1][2][3] Medical and reproductive health experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, say that the reference to a fetal heartbeat is medically inaccurate and misleading,[4][5][6][7][8][9] for a conceptus is not called a fetus until eight weeks after fertilization, as well as that at four weeks after fertilization, the embryo has no heart, only a group of cells which will become a heart.[10][11][12][13][14] Medical professionals advise that a true fetal heartbeat cannot be detected until around 17 to 20 weeks of gestation when the chambers of the heart have become sufficiently developed.[14][15]

Janet Porter, an anti-abortion activist from Ohio, is considered to be the person that first authored this type of legislation.[16] Efforts to introduce her model law succeeded in passing through political branches of government in about a dozen states but in most cases the courts struck down or blocked similar legislation; however, the Texas Heartbeat Act and analogues subsequently adopted in other states succeeded due to a unique enforcement mechanism that makes challenging the law extremely difficult, and which was upheld by the Supreme Court. In some states, the heartbeat bills' effect (whether blocked or not) has been minimized by more stringent total abortion bans that were announced following the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization; in other states, such as Ohio,[17] South Carolina and Tennessee, judges lifted the injunctions against the previously passed laws.

Porter's anti-abortion group argues that a heartbeat "is the universally recognized indicator of life."[18] Reproductive rights advocates, on the other hand, say that these bans are de facto complete abortion bans, since many women do not even know that they are pregnant six weeks after their last menstruation, which is on average (with a regular cycle) four weeks post-fertilization and three weeks post-implantation.[1][10][19]

  1. ^ a b Glenza, Jessica (June 7, 2019). "Why the Guardian is changing the language it uses to describe abortion bans". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved June 7, 2019. ACOG, which represents 58,000 physicians, says the term 'heartbeat bill' is not medically accurate. 'Pregnancy and fetal development are a continuum,' said the ACOG president, Dr Ted Anderson. 'What's interpreted as a heartbeat in these bills is actually electrically induced flickering of a portion of fetal tissue that will become the heart as the embryo develops.' ... The bans, dubbed "heartbeat" bills by supporters, have the practical effect of banning abortion before most women know they are pregnant.
  2. ^ Gordon, Mara (June 5, 2019). "Early Abortion Bans: Which States Have Passed Them?". NPR. Retrieved May 12, 2022.
  3. ^ Glenza, Jessica (June 5, 2019). "Doctors' organization: calling abortion bans 'fetal heartbeat bills' is misleading". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved June 7, 2019.
  4. ^ McDonald, Jessica (July 26, 2019). "When Are Heartbeats Audible During Pregnancy?". FactCheck. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
  5. ^ Carr Smyth, Julie; Kruesi, Kimberlee (May 14, 2021). "'Fetal heartbeat' in abortion laws taps emotion, not science". AP News. Associated Press. Retrieved May 7, 2022.
  6. ^ Feibelò, Carrie; Simmons-Duffin, Selena (February 9, 2021). "The Texas Abortion Ban Hinges On 'Fetal Heartbeat.' Doctors Call That Misleading". NPR. Retrieved May 7, 2022. Updated May 3, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
  7. ^ Irvine, Bethany (September 2, 2021). "Why 'heartbeat bill' is a misleading name for Texas' near-total abortion ban". The Texas Tribune. Retrieved May 6, 2022.
  8. ^ Heaney, Kate (May 24, 2019). "Why 'Fetal Heartbeat Bill' is a Misleading Phrase – Embryos Don't Have Hearts". The Cut. Retrieved May 6, 2022. But obstetricians say the term 'fetal heartbeat' is misleading, and that this scientific misunderstanding, among countless others, may contribute to negative public opinion toward abortion. To wit: though pulsing cells can be detected in embryos as early as six weeks, this rhythm — detected by a doctor, via ultrasound — cannot be called a 'heartbeat,' because embryos don't have hearts. What is detectable at or around six weeks can more accurately be called 'cardiac activity,' says Robyn Schickler, OB/GYN and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health. The difference between 'cardiac activity' and 'heartbeat' may seem linguistically minimal, but Schickler and others argue otherwise. At this stage, she says, what doctors can detect is essentially communication between a group of what will eventually become cardiac cells.
  9. ^ Baran, Nicole M.; Goldman, Gretchen; Zelikova, Jane (August 21, 2019). "Abortion Bans Based on So-Called 'Science' Are Fraudulent". Scientific American. Retrieved May 7, 2022. So-called heartbeat bills, which ban abortion as early as after six weeks of pregnancy, are not based on science. In fact, no heart yet exists in an embryo at six weeks. Yet six states and counting enacted such bills in 2019, in addition to Alabama's near-total ban. ... Both heartbeat bills and abortion reversal laws have been opposed by leading medical groups, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
  10. ^ a b Rogers, Adam (May 14, 2019). "'Heartbeat' Bills Get the Science of Fetal Heartbeats All Wrong". Wired. Retrieved May 23, 2019. 'Using the word heartbeat here is an intentional obfuscation,' [Jennifer Kerns, an ob-gyn at UC San Francisco and director of research in obstetrics and gynecology at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital] says. 'Hearing the word heartbeat plays upon people's emotions ... when in fact what it does is effectively ban abortions for many people, because many people don't even know they're pregnant at six weeks.'
  11. ^ Belluck, Pam (May 9, 2019). "What Do New State Abortion Laws Really Mean for Women?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 18, 2019. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an embryo is not considered a fetus until eight weeks after fertilization, which is about 10 weeks into a pregnancy. At six weeks into a pregnancy, the tissues that will become the heart are beginning to develop and a pulsing can be detected that is faster than the heartbeat of the expectant mother. Several medical experts, including those opposed to the new abortion restrictions, say that it isn't medically correct to call that pulsing a heartbeat. Rather, they say, it is the vibration or "embryonic cardiac activity" of the fetal pole, a tubelike structure that will become the heart.
  12. ^ Baker, Carrie N. (September 7, 2021). "Media Repeat Junk Science Behind Abortion Ban Laws: Check the Science—There is No Heartbeat at Six Weeks". Ms. Retrieved May 7, 2022. The Texas law bans abortion at six weeks of pregnancy, which is around four weeks after fertilization — when an embryo is the size of grain of rice. At this point in pregnancy, the embryo develops a group of cells that gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, described by Dr. Saima Aftab as 'a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart.' ... This electrical signal can only be detected by a highly sensitive ultrasound device.
  13. ^ Simmons-Duffin, Selena; Feibel, Carrie (May 2, 2022). "The Texas Abortion Ban Hinges On 'Fetal Heartbeat.' Doctors Call That Misleading". NPR. The term 'fetal heartbeat,' as used in the anti-abortion law in Texas, is misleading and not based on science, say physicians who specialize in reproductive health.
  14. ^ a b "ACOG Guide to Language and Abortion". American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Retrieved May 16, 2022. 'Heartbeat bill' – It is clinically inaccurate to use the word 'heartbeat' to describe the sound that can be heard on ultrasound in very early pregnancy. In fact, there are no chambers of the heart developed at the early stage in pregnancy that this word is used to describe, so there is no recognizable 'heartbeat.' What pregnant people may hear is the ultrasound machine translating electronic impulses that signify fetal cardiac activity into the sound that we recognize as a heartbeat. 'Fetal heartbeat' – Until the chambers of the heart have been developed and can be detected via ultrasound (roughly 17–20 weeks of gestation), it is not accurate to characterize the embryo's or fetus's cardiac development as a heartbeat.
  15. ^ Sullivan, Kaitlin (April 17, 2022). "'Heartbeat bills': Is there a fetal heartbeat at six weeks of pregnancy?". NBC News. Archived from the original on September 22, 2022. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference PubliInteg was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Knight, Anna Staver and Cameron. "Ohio's six-week abortion ban becomes law hours after Supreme Court's Dobbs decision". The Cincinnati Enquirer. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  18. ^ North, Anna (April 19, 2019). "The "heartbeat" bills that could ban almost all abortions, explained". Vox. Retrieved June 26, 2022.
  19. ^ Cite error: The named reference Vox_2019-05-16 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).