The language and scope of the new Texas abortion law

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The nation’s highest court allowed a Texas law banning most abortions to remain in force, marking a turning point for abortion opponents who have been fighting to implement tighter restrictions for nearly a decade .

Texas law, along with a “Fetal Heart Rate Bill,” prohibits abortions at the time of the “first detectable heartbeat,” which could occur about six weeks after the onset of pregnancy, although this delay is not specified in the measure. Medical experts say the heart only begins to form when the fetus is at least 9 weeks old, and they denounce efforts to promote a ban on abortion based on medical inaccuracies.

Nonetheless, at least 13 other states with Republican-dominated legislatures have passed similar bans, though courts have prevented their implementation. Democrats are calling Texas’ new law an unconstitutional attack on women’s health.

The growing anti-abortion campaign is aimed at reaching the Supreme Court of the United States. Abortion opponents hope the conservative coalition united under President Donald Trump will end the constitutional right to abortion as established by the High Court in the landmark Roe v. Wade from 1973.

The term ‘fetal heartbeat’ distorts science

State-of-the-art technology can detect the first flicker of electrical activity in the cells of an embryo as early as 6 weeks. This beating is not a beating heart, it is a heart activity that will eventually become a heart. An embryo is called a fetus after the eighth week of pregnancy, and the real heart begins to form between the ninth and twelfth week of pregnancy.

“It’s not a heartbeat, it’s the movement of neural cells moving up and down the tubes of an embryo,” said Dr. Michael Cackovic, a specialist in maternal fetal medicine at Wexner Medical Center in the United States. Ohio State University, where some 5,300 babies are born each year. .

Cackovic said ultrasound technology is advancing dramatically every year, allowing doctors to provide better information to their patients, but he is concerned that such advances in medicine have been used to promote misinformation.

“We use the technology to detect early heart movements, it’s basically a reflective moment,” Cackovic added. “But now people are using this technology to advance their agenda. “

In 2013, a pioneering study from the University of Leeds found that while four clearly defined chambers appear in the human heart from the eighth week of pregnancy, they remain a ‘disorganized mess of tissue’ until around week 20. , much later than previously believed.

Anti-abortion activist draws on emotion

The idea that abortion as early as six weeks pregnant “stops a beating heart” is a concept created by Ohio activist Janet Folger Porter, one of the most vocal advocates of the procedure’s ban.

Porter discovered hearts were easy to market and punctuated his ten-year lobbying efforts by handing out heart-shaped balloons and teddy bears, while avoiding whether the proposal’s packaging was medically true.

She is a polarizing figure, even among Republicans, due to her lobbying stunts and other controversial actions she has taken over the years. In particular, she arranged a “testimony” by ultrasound of a fetus in utero. She also questions the citizenship of President Barack Obama and most recently served as a spokesperson for Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, who denied allegations that he assaulted a 14-year-old girl.

Other states join us

It took nearly a decade for Ohio to approve Porter-backed abortion ban, but other states eventually joined in, after proponents of similar bans reflected his tactics of lobbying lawmakers and using moving phrases such as “take heart” or “have a heart.”

Arkansas and North Dakota were among the first states to pass such bills in 2013. Iowa became the third in 2018. About two dozen states have since introduced similar measures within their legislatures, but only the Texas version was passed.

This isn’t the first time abortion has sparked a war of words

Many battles have taken place over politically charged, inaccurate or vague terminology in abortion laws.

“Dismemberment abortion” is a term that opponents of abortion use to describe dilation and evacuation, a common method of second trimester abortion. Others have used “partial birth abortion” to describe what is medically called intact dilation and extraction.

In the fight against fetal heart activity, anti-abortion proponents counter that the use of medical terminology dehumanizes the unborn child.