Planned Parenthood redefines fetal heartbeat after Stacey Abrams' 'manufactured sound' claim
Pediatrician Kathleen Berchelmann joined 'Fox & Friends First' to discuss how Planned Parenthood pivoted on its stance and why she claims the change is the 'oldest trick in the book' to redefine medicine.
The Associated Press announced this week it doesn't find terms like "fetal heartbeat" and "late-term abortion" to be journalistically acceptable, leaving pro-life advocates outraged at what they view as another example of institutional bias on the issue.
The news agency announced Tuesday, "a new entry has been added to the stylebook" in what the company calls the "abortion topical guide." Regarding fetal heartbeat bills and six-week abortion bans, the AP told reporters to avoid the phrases, saying, "The terms are overly broad and misleading given the disagreement over details, such as what constitutes a heartbeat at varying gestational ages."
The international wire service has a vast reach, noting that "more than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day." Additionally, the AP style guide instructs journalists around the industry on phrases to use and avoid, making any of its language choices notable.
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The Associated Press has cautioned against using the word "heartbeat" to discuss anti-abortion legislation. (Photo by: Michael Siluk/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images))
The guide continued, "Advanced technology can detect a flickering as early as six weeks, when the embryo isn't yet a fetus, and it has only begun forming a rudimentary heart. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists [ACOG] says it is not accurate to call that a heartbeat. Use the term cardiac activity instead."
Journalists are instructed to call attention to anti-abortion efforts in states by putting them in quotation marks: "If quoting someone using the terms ‘fetal heartbeat bill,’ ‘heartbeat bill’ and ‘six-week abortion ban,’ enclose the terms in quotation marks and provide explanation."
A microphone of Associated Press (AP), an American non-profit news agency. (Chan Long Hei/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The AP is promoting its changes, tweeting out the new language on its @APStylebook account.
Dr. Christina Francis, CEO-Elect for the American Association of Pro Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists (AAPLOG), told Fox News Digital the AP's reliance on the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is flawed: "ACOG only denies the existence of the embryonic heart when it inconveniences the pro-abortion agenda."
She stated, "By six weeks' gestation, the human embryo has developed an organ that contracts rhythmically to pump blood through its body, aiding in the exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the blood -- in other words, a heart."
Kristi Hamrick of Students for Life of America insisted "the Associated Press is gaslighting as policy in joining the pretense that changing definitions changes facts."
"Despite what the heartless misinformation team at the AP says, ALL heartbeats involve an electrical impulse, putting all of humankind in the same category, born or pre-born," she told Fox News Digital.
Regarding the AP’s language changes, she suggested the organization is "putting pro-abortion politics over facts, to weaponize discourse" and concluded that "if they continue to push what all can see as nonsense, it's their credibility that will be sacrificed."
"To deny ‘cardiac activity’ is a ‘heartbeat’ is denying scientific fact that this activity is a sign of a living human being and the origin of a human person," Penny Nance, CEO and President of Concerned Women for America, told Fox News digital. She added, "This is how the media sets terms for driving a narrative rather than reporting the news."
Nance warned that the AP "wants to control language and do the bidding of those who condone" abortion.
Fox News reached out to NARAL Pro-Choice America for comment but did not hear back.
Media Research Center President Brent Bozell called it an example of pushing a pro-choice agenda, telling Fox News Digital the "'news' media will do anything, anything to continue pushing a radical pro-abortion agenda, including slandering the entire pro-life movement and science itself."
A group of anti-abortion protesters crashes the Women's March Action Rally for Reproductive Rights at Mariachi Plaza in Los Angeles, California, on Oct. 8, 2022. ( DAVID MCNEW / AFP) (Photo by DAVID MCNEW/AFP via Getty Images)
In November, NPR took criticism for broadcasting audio of an actual abortion in progress.