Lawmakers in 15 states have introduced so-called “fetal heartbeat” legislation this year to ban abortion as soon as a doctor can detect cardiac activity in an embryo, which typically happens at around six weeks into a pregnancy. But doctors say that not only is that cutoff completely arbitrary, it’s also based on the false premise that a “fetal heartbeat” — a phrase often included in the bills’ titles — even exists at that stage of pregnancy. “To say that a six-week pregnancy has a fetal anything is incorrect,” explained Dr. Colleen McNicholas, an obstetrician-gynecologist who performs abortions, noting that the term “fetal heartbeat” isn’t even applicable until about 10 weeks into a pregnancy. At that point, an embryo has developed sufficiently to be called a fetus. At six weeks, an embryo’s cardiac development “doesn’t at all resemble what would eventually become a functioning human adult heart,” she said. “At that point, it really is just these two tubes with a couple of layers of cardiac or heart cells that can vibrate or cause some sort of movement that we use colloquially to talk about a ‘fetal heartbeat.’” McNicholas is based in Saint Louis, Missouri, where Gov. Mike Parson (R) is expected to sign a bill banning abortion at that stage in the coming weeks. Governors in Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Georgia have also signed similar legislation this year, though the bans already face legal challenges.

To say that a six-week pregnancy has a fetal anything is incorrect. Dr. Colleen McNicholas

Dr. Carley Zeal, another OB-GYN based in St. Louis, expressed similar frustration with the “fetal heartbeat” terminology these bills are using. An embryo at six weeks “has no other functioning organs, no ability to live on its own, and it’s actually so small that when we review pathology from an abortion or a miscarriage at six weeks gestation, there’s not an identifiable fetus to review,” she said. “It’s just a gestational sac and some cells, so it’s very small and definitely not able to live outside of the womb.” At that point, an embryo is less than a centimeter long, she said. That’s smaller than a penny or the width of most people’s pinky fingers. But the way the lawmakers orchestrating these abortion bans speak about pregnancy at that stage leaves a very different impression. “If there is a detection of a heartbeat, that child is a living human being, and you can no longer murder this child in its mother’s womb,” Kentucky state Sen. Matt Castlen (R) said at a press conference when introducing his state’s “fetal heartbeat” bill in January. “What we’re doing is ... recognizing that the child with a beating heart inside of mom that’s got a heartbeat, that they’re preparing a nursery for, that is wiggling around inside mom, is actually a person,” Georgia state Rep. Ed Setzler (R), the architect behind his state’s abortion ban, said in a March interview. “Science tells us that the heartbeat really is the beginning of life and the end of life,” he continued.

ASSOCIATED PRESS Demonstrators in Washington, D.C., protest in favor of abortion rights.

Science doesn’t actually tell us that, said Zeal, who’s testified against the Missouri bill as part of her involvement with the group Physicians for Reproductive Health. The focus on the heartbeat as a cutoff date is completely arbitrary. “There’s a lot of talk from the other side about a heartbeat being the point at which a life begins, which is really based on their ideologies,” she said. “What we are trying to focus on as providers is to take it away from their black-and-white ideology and focus back on what is safest and what is the most effective care for our patients.” McNicholas agreed. “From a medical standpoint, there is no single organ that we say defines life,” she said. To her, focusing on the heart is taking advantage of one of society’s most deep-seated word associations. The heart is merely a muscle that pumps blood through someone’s circulatory system, but idioms like “following your heart” and “a broken heart” have given anti-abortion activists something that tugs at people’s heartstrings ― figuratively speaking. “I think that it’s a capitalization on our society’s longstanding obsession and infatuation around the symbolism of the heart,” she said. “We use the heart visually in so many different ways to mean so many different things, and I think this particular approach really capitalizes on our obsession with the heart being a symbol of something.” Beyond lawmakers ignoring facts about embryology, they’re disregarding a huge practical issue: Many women don’t know they’re pregnant in the first six to eight weeks of pregnancy, both doctors said. It’s common for patients who have irregular periods, thyroid issues, financial insecurities that limit their medical access and other atypical circumstances to miss or not have any early signs of pregnancy.

I’ve never really studied it, but I’ve heard of the morning-after pill, where if someone feels they’ve been sexually assaulted, they could go do that. Missouri state Rep. Barry Hovis (R)