Right to the heart of abortion lies

If the writers and editors at The New York Times only had a heart.

But instead, in defense of aborting the next generation, a recent article drags out all the usual fallacies, non-sequiturs, and illogical defenses for prenatal killing. As Tin Man himself said, “No heart. All hollow.”

Faith tip: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23 ESV

The NYT article “Abortion Opponents Hear a ‘Heartbeat.’ Most Experts Hear Something Else” is not so much news, nor even opinion, as it is a talking points memo for pro-abortion advocacy.

As such, it is every bit as heartless as you might expect towards the youngest members of the human family, the prenatal child.

Prompted by the new Texas law (also in place in a dozen other states) prohibiting abortion after a prenatal heartbeat can be detected, the NYT seeks to undo the science of human development. The writer begs the question by assuming the prenatal child is not fully human, and thus deserving of protection, absent any evidence to support her assumption.

The article is rife with logical fallacies, including several in the headline alone.

• By putting the word heartbeat in quotes, the Times calls into question whether prenatal children have hearts. The prenatal human heart is not in dispute. In fact, Oxford University research findings support the existence of the the prenatal human heartbeat, not at 6 weeks as codified in the Texas law, but at 16 days after conception.
• By invoking “most experts” in the headline the Times strikes out twice–with a hasty generalization not supported by the facts in the article, and with an appeal to authority by quoting a few expert opinions and not a single fetal cardiac specialist.

Next swing-and-a-miss involves NYT calling the existence of the prenatal heart and heartbeat a “disputed assertion.” There is no dispute.

The Endowment for Human Development offers a free human development educational resource designed according to their policy of bioethical neutrality. Their health science education and public health data clearly demonstrate the beating human heart at 4 weeks and 4 days after conception.

The website is wealth of information and a more scientific version of the typical pregnancy tracker most expectant moms use these days. Baby Center, The Bump, and a host of others help visualize the growing new life. The Bump, for example assures expectant moms that they may hear a heartbeat at six weeks, or perhaps a little later.

Yet, Dr. Nicha Verma is quoted as a representative of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), objecting to legislators who are not medical professionals deciding policy. The Times conflates that objection to something else, stating that ACOG, “has objected to the idea that a fetus has a heart at six weeks.” In fact, the group’s 2017 statement on fetal heartbeat laws states plainly, “[D]etection of the fetal heartbeat . . . occurs as early as six weeks gestation, measured from the woman’s last menstrual period (LMP).” Was that just sloppy reporting? Granted, ACOG opposes fetal heartbeat laws, but they do so on legal grounds, and political considerations of women’s rights, not on denying the basic biology of prenatal children.

The next panel of experts fails to meet the previous expert’s criteria: Rutger’s Informed Consent Project is authored by a political science professor and various other poli-sci, not medical, minds. They examined various states’ informed consent materials, and offered NO finding on the question of fetal heartbeat materials. So that source is doubly disqualified in the headline’s Most Experts box.

The Times asserts that “many medical societies and experts say the laws and state-mandated educational materials rest on profound misconceptions about embryonic and fetal development and abortion risks.” Who exactly are these societies and experts? The article doesn’t say.

And we learn, “The consensus among most medical experts is that the electrical activity picked up on an ultrasound at six weeks is not the sound of a heart beating . . . ” Who is even one of these most medical experts? They remain unnamed.

Finally, we meet the dissenting Doctor, Gabriela Aguilar, an obstetrician-gynecologist and a former fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health whom the Times quotes as saying, “What you see and hear on an early ultrasound is embryonic activity — electrical currents being sent through cells that will develop at a much later time into a heart.”

Hmm. According to Johns Hopkins ALL human heart activity is initiated as “electrical currents.” And even abortion giant Planned Parenthood advises that prenatal children have a “basic beating heart” at 5-6 weeks of pregnancy.

There are many medical reasons a practitioner may refer a pregnant woman or couple for an early ultrasound. A history of miscarriage or difficult pregnancy is just one of several conditions indicating the value of checking for a fetal heartbeat at 6 weeks, according to this Healthline article, How Early Can You Hear Your Baby’s Heartbeat on Ultrasound and By Ear? Then again, the heartless crew at NYT would probably object to the whole “your baby” thing.

Because the author wants to warn about heartbeat laws and informed consent in other states, she moves on to non-sequiturs on abortion access, mental health, maternal death, breast cancer, infertility, emotional health, and poverty. NONE of these things have anything to do with the prenatal child’s early heartbeat.

To her credit, the author quotes experts from the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, as well as those from the Charlotte Lozier Institute. You can learn a great deal of information from these organizations, which treat both mothers and prenatal children as patients worthy of care.

I lost a child to abortion before the widespread use of prenatal ultrasound. That’s why this issue matters so much to me. I made that decision in the literal darkness of uninformed consent. Research findings indicate that, while seeing your baby’s heartbeat may not persuade women who are committed to aborting that pregnancy, for undecided women over 70,000 lives may be saved each year through the use of ultrasound by helping women connect with their prenatal child.

What the Scriptures say

• “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.” (Prv 31:8-9)
• “The Lord watches over and sustains the foreigner, the fatherless, the widow.” (Ps 146:9) As Randy Alcorn has noted, the culture of easy abortion has made young women and their children like widows and orphans in our world, without the protection and leadership of men to sustain them. When we side with the fatherless child and their mothers, we are reflecting God’s love and care for them.
• “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9)

I know abortion hardens the hearts of many who choose it, and even those who support the practice of sacrificing prenatal children for the sake of their mothers.

But I’m truly baffled at the lengths to which they will go. I can barely hear their hearts beating at all.