The liberal news media has struggled to avoid life-affirming language about unborn babies when writing about Ohio’s Heartbeat Bill in the past few weeks, but NPR managed to find a way.
The bill, which passed both Ohio houses but was vetoed by the governor, would prohibit abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable, about six weeks into the pregnancy.
It is generally accepted fact that an unborn child’s heart begins to beat by about 22 days after conception. In October, however, Oxford University researchers announced findings that an unborn child’s heartbeat may begin even earlier at 16 days after conception.
But in NPR’s reporting of the bill, the radio news outlet minimized these facts by describing the bill as “tied to sounds from the fetus.”
The Federalist’s Bre Payton said she first noticed the euphemistic language on Tuesday as she drove past the NPR building in Washington, D.C.
The ticker that she saw read, “Republican governor decided the time-limit measure is more likely to withstand legal challenges than a separate bill tied to sounds from the fetus.”
Online, she also found an NPR report that put the words “heartbeat bill” in quotes in the headline. A brief description of the article mentioned “sounds from the fetus” rather than heartbeat, and the article itself described it as the “so-called heartbeat bill.”
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Payton wrote:
Come on, NPR. You ought to be better than this.
It’s time the media has an honest dialogue about what abortion is instead of couching it in sterile terms like “fetus,” “tissue,” or “sounds from the fetus.” Instead they ought to use terms like “baby,” “organs,” and “heartbeat,” because that’s what these things are. Euphemisms equal bias. With this description, NPR is putting its hand on the scale. NPR and other so-called objective media entities ought to be honest about what abortion is: the killing of an unborn child in the womb. To pretend that it’s this sterile medical procedure in which everyone benefits is a lie intended to mislead the public.
The time when an unborn child’s heart begins to beat is not a theory or some piece of pro-life “propaganda,” as NPR’s wording implies. It is a scientific fact, and most women who already are mothers know this.
Around six weeks of pregnancy, doctors often can detect an unborn baby’s heartbeat on an ultrasonic stethoscope. Many moms get the opportunity to hear their baby’s heartbeat at this early point.
The abortion industry often hides this information from mothers, though. It’s unfortunate, as Payton noted, that mainstream media outlets like NPR are helping the abortion industry by presenting facts about unborn babies as if they are mere speculation.
