You know something is really wrong in the news business when the New York Times goes further than even Planned Parenthood to deny the humanity of the unborn.
On Monday, the New York Times published an article titled, “Abortion Is New Litmus Test for Democratic Attorneys General Group.” Its subhead reads, “To win financial backing from Democratic Attorneys General Association, candidates will be required to publicly state their support of abortion rights.”
The report contains a lot of the normal pro-abortion pablum that one would expect from a major left-leaning newsroom. But there is one passage that sticks out in particular for its use of a euphemism so dark that it’s funny. The passage, which was flagged first by National Review’s Alexandra DeSanctis, reads (and the emphasis is added): “Gov. John Bel Edwards, of Louisiana, a rare Democratic officeholder in the South, who won re-election on Saturday, after campaigning on his opposition to abortion and support for a state law barring abortion after the pulsing of what becomes the fetus’s heart can be detected.”
The Louisiana law, by the way, bars “the abortion of an unborn human being with a detectable heartbeat.” A baby’s heartbeat can be detected sometimes as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. That is the bill the New York Times is awkwardly trying to refer to, without admitting to any of it.
What the newspaper published represents a concerted effort to avoid admitting that an unborn child as young as six weeks after conception has a heartbeat. But this is actually an improvement. At least the New York Times appears to have moved on from calling the unborn child’s heartbeat “embryonic pulsing,” as it did in May 2019.
The really twisted thing here is not that a newspaper is playing fast and loose with the English language for the benefit of abortion, one of its sacred cows. The really twisted thing is that not even Planned Parenthood takes it so far. As journalist Jeryl Bier reminded everyone Monday, “even Planned Parenthood acknowledged a ‘very basic beating heart’ at 5-6 weeks,” he said on social media.
On Planned Parenthood’s website, under the headline, “What happens during week 5 – 6?” the abortion groups lists a few key developments in the unborn child at that stage in life, including “the embryo is less than 1/5 inch (4–5 mm) long,” “buds for arms and legs develop,” and a “very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop.”
A “very basic beating heart.” Or should we call it “embryonic pulsing”? At this rate, with organizations such as the New York Times, what use is there for groups such as Planned Parenthood?
