[PJ] The venerable Atlantic has already taken a lot of heat for this disgraceful article (see the world-class appendage of corrections at the end) but it's worth taking a brief look at to illustrate just how morally awful the pro-abortion crowd has become:One of the first measures that Republicans in the 115th Congress proposed was the "Heartbeat Protection Act." On January 11, a group led by Steve King of Iowa introduced a bill that would require doctors nationwide to "check for a fetal heartbeat" before performing an abortion, and prohibit them from completing the procedure if they found one. In December, Republicans in the Ohio state legislature put forth a similar measure. Governor John Kasich vetoed it, observing that such a law would almost certainly be struck down as unconstitutional, but approved a 20-week abortion ban.
Opponents of the heartbeat bills have pointed out that they would eliminate abortion rights almost entirely--making the procedure illegal around four weeks after fertilization, before many women realize that they are pregnant. These measures raise even more elementary questions: What is a fetal heartbeat? And why does it matter?
The idea would have been unthinkable before the advent of a technology developed in 1976: real-time ultrasound. At six weeks, the "heartbeat" is not audible; it is visible, a flickering that takes place between 120 and 160 times per minute on a black-and-white playback screen. As cardiac cells develop, they begin to send electrical pulses that cause their neighbors to contract. Scientists can observe the same effect if they culture cells in a petri dish.
Doctors do not even call this rapidly dividing cell mass a "fetus" until nine weeks into pregnancy. Yet, the current debate shows how effectively politicians have used visual technology to redefine what counts as "life."