Heartbeat Deniers Bring to Mind the Emperor Without Clothes

Reality is under attack once again, this time from those suggesting pre-born babies don’t have heartbeats early in their first trimester of development.
“There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks,” Georgia’s Stacey Abrams claimed this past Tuesday. “It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”
Only a baby at that stage does have a heartbeat – and even Planned Parenthood acknowledged as much as recently as this July – saying a “very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop” during the fifth to sixth week of pregnancy.
Yet like a page out of George Orwell’s 1984, the abortion provider has since edited the entry in an attempt to muddy what was once clear. Now they say “part of the embryo starts to show cardiac activity” during that same timeframe. Even those purporting to be “fact-checkers” at the Washington Post came to Abrams’ defense.
“FWIW [For what it’s worth], ‘fetal heartbeat’ is a misnomer,” tweeted Glenn Kessler. “The ultrasound picks up electrical activity generated by an embryo. The so-called ‘heartbeat’ sound you hear is created by the ultrasound. Not until 10 weeks can the opening and closing of cardiac valves be detected by a Doppler machine.”
Yet, ultrasounds don’t even detect electrical activity. Anyone who has ever seen an ultrasound conducted of a pre-born baby knows you actually see the evidence of the beating heart by seeing it pulsating.
When it comes to the subject of abortion, the Left knows it has a problem. While truth liberates, lies linger, fester, and eventually strike a fatal blow. Defending the killing of innocent pre-born life is an untenable position to hold. As such, the only way to stave off defeat is to try and change definitions and even deny reality.
“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest,” wrote Benjamin Franklin.
This is all brings to mind “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the well-known fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1837. As you will recall from the story, a very vain king in search of the finest new threads summons two men who present themselves as haberdashers. In fact, they’re a bunch of swindlers, but they somehow convince the king they have used the finest (and very expensive) fabric to weave the most fantastic new clothes. Not wanting to appear stupid, the king strips down and supposedly puts on the “magical” new “clothes.” Of course, there are no clothes at all – but that doesn’t stop the emperor from proudly parading around pretending they exist. Incredibly, people go along with it – until a child calls out the obvious and exposes the fraud.
When it comes to their defense of abortion and what it is and what it’s supposedly not, swindlers on the Left have gone to great lengths to try and pass fiction as fact. And many abortion activists, like the emperor, appear quite happy to parade around town believing the lies.
Yes, a pre-born baby has a heartbeat at six weeks.
In the famous Andersen folktale, even after the lie is exposed, the emperor feels like he has to carry on parading in the nude, if only to save face. In fact, he carries on more proudly than ever before. In the betting world, it’s called “chasing your losses,” – believing that somehow, some way, you’ll win back what you just blew.
In a post-Roe world, one gets the sense that abortion activists are now chasing their losses, and strutting taller – and telling more and more lies in the hope of convincing the world they really do have new clothes. They don’t – and like in Hans Christian Andersen’s famous work, it’s a child that’s exposing the truth they still refuse to accept.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul J. Batura is a writer and vice president of communications for Focus on the Family. He’s authored numerous books including “Chosen for Greatness: How Adoption Changes the World,” “Good Day! The Paul Harvey Story” and “Mentored by the King: Arnold Palmer's Success Lessons for Golf, Business, and Life.” Paul can be reached via email: [email protected] or Twitter @PaulBatura
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