15 states have introduced legislation this year to ban abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. These bills are, essentially, backdoor abortion bans.
At least 15 states have introduced legislation this year to ban abortion as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. These bills are, essentially, backdoor full abortion bans. Since Roe v Wade made it so that states couldn’t straight-up outlaw abortion, legislators have to get creative with their bans. By setting the deadline at six weeks, before many people even know they’re pregnant, it’s a clear de facto ban on abortion itself. But the Republicans behind this sort of legislation have been fairly effective in garnering support for such a ban by framing it around emotional language like a “child’s” “heartbeat.”
In reality, there is no child present; there is an embryo. For many people experiencing pregnancy, there is joy and excitement over the potential future of a child, and that’s great; that’s absolutely beautiful. But those are feelings, not science. According to the science of the situation, what you have at six weeks is, as John Oliver recently explained, “an embryo the size of a pomegranate seed.”
At that point, there is no heartbeat because at six weeks, there is no heart yet. What there is is embryonic cardiac activity, or electrical activity in the fetal pole that runs along the yolk sac. But “healthy yolk sac development” doesn’t have the same emotional grip as “fetal heartbeat,” so anti-choice proponents went with the latter.
What’s upsetting is that anti-choice language works. According to a poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, about half of those surveyed support a ban on abortions after a “fetal heartbeat” is detected. As you might expect, that division is highly partisan, with only 27% of Democrats ( and 25% of Democrat women) supporting such a ban. 70% of Republicans and 77% of Republican women support the idea.
That number drops dramatically once people are told that a six-week ban affects pregnant people before they know they are pregnant. About one-quarter of those who supported a ban (12% total) changed their opinion when they learned that fact. Who knows how many people would have changed their mind if they were informed about the difference between a heart and a yolk sac.
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Please also understand that this is the Republic Conservatives “Plan B’ for getting Roe v Wade reintroduced into a Conservative-filled Supreme Court so they can overturn it. They have been working towards this goal for DECADES. Nothing they have done in regards to reproductive rights has been for any reason other than overturning Roe v Wade since the late 80′s / early 90′s, when the Supreme Court began tossing out direct attacks on it. They are literally pissing their pants waiting for the first state-level lawsuits to roll out so they can roll it up to SCOTUS with shit-eating grins on their faces.
