Planned Parenthood admitted this week to changing its website to get rid of language confirming that an unborn baby has a heartbeat by about six weeks of pregnancy.
But it did not have a good excuse as to why.
Asked about the change, Julia Bennett, who supervises digital education and learning strategy at the nation’s largest abortion chain, said they regularly update their website “to ensure that information is medically accurate, reflects the latest science and is accessible to learners,” according to National Review.
However, Bennett did not provide any evidence that its previous statement – “a very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop” by six weeks of pregnancy – is no longer medically accurate or that scientific understanding on the matter has changed. The language was on its website since 2015, if not earlier, according to a Washington Examiner article from that year.
The webpage, which Planned Parenthood changed in July, now tells women: “A part of the embryo starts to show cardiac activity. It sounds like a heartbeat on an ultrasound, but it’s not a fully-formed heart – it’s the earliest stage of the heart developing.”
Although she denied it, Bennett’s statement to the Washington Post suggests the real reason for the change was political, not scientific.
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“As anti-abortion lawmakers and activists seeking to control people’s health care decisions continue to peddle misinformation and even codify medical inaccuracies into law, it’s critical that people get unbiased information from actual experts, like health care providers and educators,” she said.
But most doctors, textbooks, medical school professors, hospitals and other experts confirm that an unborn baby has a heartbeat by six weeks.
Dr. Calum Miller, a British medical doctor and ethicist, noticed the change on Planned Parenthood’s website last month and connected it to the increasing popularity of heartbeat laws across the United States.
More than a dozen states have passed heartbeat laws, and Texas became the first to enforce one last year. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, other states are enforcing or battling with pro-abortion groups in court to enforce their heartbeat laws and save unborn babies’ lives.
These laws protect unborn babies from abortions once their heartbeat is detectable, about six weeks of pregnancy, which is before many women know they are pregnant.
A few years ago, however, when polls began showing public support for heartbeat legislation, abortion activists launched a misinformation campaign to convince the public that unborn babies do not really have heartbeats by six weeks of pregnancy.
With the help of mainstream news outlets, pro-abortion groups spread claims that the heartbeat is just “embryonic pulsing,” “electrical pulsing,” “fetal pole cardiac activity” or a “so-called heartbeat.”
But altering the language does not alter the truth. According to a pregnancy outline on the Mayo Clinic website, “the heart and other organs also are starting to form and the heart begins to beat” at about four weeks after conception.
Secular Pro-Life recently compiled a list of quotes from textbooks, scientific journals and other expert sources that confirm an unborn baby’s heart begins to beat as early as 22 days gestation.
A few years ago, the prestigious University of Oxford and the British Health Association also published a study suggesting that the human heart may begin beating as early as 16 days after conception.
“The heart is the first organ to form during pregnancy and is critical in providing oxygen and nutrients to the developing embryo,” the university researchers wrote.
Despite the misinformation from Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups, the truth is clear. Baby websites, doctors, scientific research – even TV shows – acknowledge what millions of mothers know to be true after seeing for themselves the heartbeat of their tiny, living unborn child.
