In the video, one of the two women, ask a Planned Parenthood counselor if the pregnant woman's 8 week old embryo has a heartbeat (the pregnancy is 10 weeks LMP). The counselor emphasizes "heart tones," and answers, "Heart beat is when the fetus is active in the uterus--can survive--which is about seventeen or eighteen weeks."
It is clear that this Planned Parenthood employee is confusing when the fetal heart begins to beat, with viability, when the fetus' organs are mature enough for the fetus to be able to survive after birth (induced or natural). Evenso, the explination of heart tones is in particular, medically inaccurate and dishonest. An embryo/fetus' heart beat is the same thing as fetal heart tones and the term "fetal heart tone" is used to describe the sound made by the heart beating and this is the sound picked up by a Doppler ultrasound (source). The fetal heart beat can be picked up with a Doppler ultrasound, at the earliest, during the 9-10th week of pregnancy, and sometimes not until the 12th to 14th week of pregnancy (source). However, while it is not detectable immediately, the rudimentary heart has been beating since day 22-25 or 3 weeks since ovulation, 5 weeks since LMP. The development of the fetal heart is not dependent upon viability, which is a seperate event and occurs not until somewhere around 23 to 25 weeks.
"Heart – begins to beat in Humans by day 22-23, first functioning embryonic organ formed."
- http://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/Notes/week4.htm
"The embryonic heart starts beating 22 days after conception, or about five weeks after the last menstrual period, which by convention we call the fifth week of pregnancy."
- http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,9851,00.html
"A primitive S-shaped tubal heart is beating and peristalsis, the rhythmic muscle contractions propelling fluids throughout the body, begins"
- http://www.visembryo.com/baby/11.html
"The heart begins beating 3 weeks and 1 day following fertilization [5 weeks LMP - Ed.]." - http://www.ehd.org/resources_bpd_documentation_english.php#chapter9
"Embryonic Heart Rate (EHR), early in development the heart starts to spontaneously beat" - http://embryology.med.unsw.edu.au/Notes/heart6.htm
This scientific information contrasts to the misinformation the Planned Parenthood employee gave. The Planned Parenthood employee then goes on to talk about the ability of the fetus to survive outside the uterus -- which is not what the patient asked. She didn't ask if her baby could survive if it were born at that moment. She asked if her baby's heart was beating. The Planned Parenthood employee tries to divert the patient's interest from what matters to her -- Is the heart beating? -- to what the employee is more comfortable talking about, the nonviability of the fetus, and the Planned Parenthood employee tries to avoid discussing and minimizes the fetal development in hopes to diminish the patient's concern for her embryo/fetus: "Heart tones is cardiac activity, but it is not a beat on your own-that you would survive on your own outside the uterus. Obviously if a fetus at 10 weeks could survive outside the uterus you wouldn't be pregnant for 40 weeks."
When the client then asks, "What's fetal?" the Planned Parenthood counselor then says, "A fetus is what's in the uterus right now. That is not a baby. A baby is what is born at 40 weeks. A fetus is what is in your uterus right now."
Former Planned Parenthood clinic director, Abby Johnson reaffirms this and is quoted in the video saying, "...they don't necessarily want to talk about all the aspects of fetal development...they don't want to talk about when your baby has a heart beat...they don't want to talk about when organs start to develop...they don't want to give the woman information that could make that connection...that could give her a connection with her baby."
The patient then asks for a consult with the doctor. When the doctor comes in, known only as Dr. "P", he avoids the patient's questions and tries to push for an exam first -- to move this patient along in the process and to get her past asking questions.
The patient to the doctor, "The other lady told me I could talk to you first like what the procedures were-" at which time the doctor cut her off and said, "I'm going to go over that with you as soon as I do the exam."
The further you are along in a process, the less willing you are to back out. And this doctor, like the other staff, are trying to keep this patient from thinking too much about her pregnancy and what she's about to undergo. If they were interested in giving this patient complete information and time to thoroughly consider her options before proceeding with the abortion, why would they avoid or redirect her questions and push for going straight into the exam?
The doctor then gives in and allows the patient to ask her questions. When asked, "When does it become a baby," he gives a conflicting and subjective philosphical statement:
The Planned Parenthood counselor earlier told her: "A baby is what's born at fourty weeks."
Dr. "P" said: "When you're like seven months pregnant or so. Six, seven months pregnant." and insists "It's not a baby at this stage or anything like that."
While "fetus" is a correct medical term to describe the developing human during pregnancy, the term "baby" is not incorrect and is a layman's term, which may be used by the woman to describe her feelings towards the embryo/fetus. To give you an idea of what the pregnancy looks like at this stage of development, here are some images of the embryo at 56 - 60 days post-ovulation (8 weeks fetal age, 10 weeks, LMP):
http://embryo.soad.umich.edu/carnStages/stage23/stage23.html
http://www.visembryo.com/baby/23.html
http://www.ehd.org/dev_article_unit9.php
"Most embryos at [Carnegie] stage 23 are approximately 56-57 postovulatory days old and measure 23-32 mm in length. Distinguishing criteria for this stage include fusion of the eyelids at the medial and lateral margins, clear distinction of the subdivisions of the upper and lower limbs, the forearms appear at or above the level of the shoulders, the superficial vascular plexus of the head is very close to the vertex, and the external genitalia are well developed but not always sufficiently to distinguish the embryo's sex." (source)
More on the embryonic development at this stage:
Head and Neck
Head is erect and rounded. External ear is completely developed. The eyes are closed, but the retina of the eye is fully pigmented. The eyelids begin to unite and are only half closed. Taste buds begin to form on the surface of the tongue. The primary teeth are at cap stage. Bones of the palate begin to fuse. Scalp plexus reaches head vertex.
Abdomen
Intestines begin to migrate from the umbilical cord into the body cavity.
Pelvis
External genitals still difficult to recognize.
Limbs
Upper and lower limbs are well formed. Fingers get longer and toes no longer webbed and all digits are separate and distinct.
Spine, Skeleton, and Muscles
Layer of rather flattened cells, the precursor of the surface layer of the skin, replaces the thin ectoderm of the embryo. Tail (the enlongated spinal cord) has disappeared.
http://www.visembryo.com/baby/23.html
Definately not just a "mass of tissue" or "undifferentiated cells" as most pro-choicers will claim.
The abortion practitioner then goes on to provide one-sided information in order to persuade this woman to have an abortion, saying, "This is very safe. The stage you're at right now is very, very safe. Safer than having a baby, actually." He then goes on to add, "You know, women die having babies."
According to Jezebel, the claim "Abortion is safer than childbirth" comes from 2002 CDC statistics. In 2002, the CDC recorded 9 deaths out of 845,573 abortions. That's a little over 1 in 100,000. Also in 2002, the CDC recorded 8.9 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births. From there, they deduct carrying a child to term was about 9 times more dangerous than having an abortion. However, there are some issues with this approach and deduction, with the comparison of abortion mortality and maternal mortality rates. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control report for pregnancy-related mortality rates: "In this report, a woman's death was classified as pregnancy-related if it occurred during pregnancy or within 1 year of pregnancy and resulted from 1) complications of the pregnancy, 2) a chain of events that was initiated by the pregnancy, or 3) the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiologic effects of the pregnancy or its management" (source). This means pregnancy-related mortality rates are broadly defined to included the following: aggravation of a maternal pre-existing, non-pregnancy-related medical condition, pregnancy-induced maternal medical condition, miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy, still birth, post-partum complications, and includes induced abortion. Therfore the maternal mortality rates are inflated and we are not comparing with the pregnancy mortality rate alone. In addition, regarding the CDC and AGI reports for Induced Abortions, mortalities resulting from induced abortion are typically under-reported as such. One reason is that a medical examiner may code the underlying cause of death on the autopsy report as the complication alone, i.e. embolism, septsis, hemorrhage, or anesthesia complications, rather than correctly as a legally induced abortion with specified complication. A good explination of this can be found here. Therefore it is misleading to compare pregnancy-related mortality rates to abortion mortality rates to obtain the conclusion that abortion is safer than childbirth.
The patient then asks, "Do women die with abortions?" A very common question women ask about the safety of the procedure, to which the abortion practioner replies, "Yes. But it's never happened to me..." This marks the end of the video.
Let me take a moment to address abortion safety, since it was brought up. According to E-Medicine: Abortion Complications complications of spontaneous and therapeutic abortions include (1) complications of anesthesia, (2) postabortion triad (ie, pain, bleeding, low-grade fever), (3) hematometra, (4) retained products of conception, (5) uterine perforation, (6) bowel and bladder injury, (7) failed abortion, (8) septic abortion, (9) cervical shock, (10) cervical laceration, and (11) disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC). Frequency of complications depends on gestational age at time of abortion and method of abortion. Complication rates according to gestational age at time of abortion are as follows: for 8 weeks and under - Less than 1% or less than 17,300 women will experience complications, for 8-12 weeks - 1.5 to 2% or 25,950 to 34,600 women, 12-13 weeks - 3 to 6% or 51,900 to 103,800 women, Second trimester - Up to 50% or 865,000 women, possibly higher.
Mortality and morbidity depend on gestational age (GA) at time of abortion. In the US, mortality rates per 100,000 abortions are as follows: (1) fewer than 8 weeks, 0.5; (2) 11-12 weeks, 2.2; (3) 16-20 weeks, 14; and (4) more than 21 weeks, 18. Let me put this into perspective for you. Consider that in 2002, 1.3 million abortions were preformed and and 430,000 spontaneous abortions occured in the United States, (source: Unintended Pregnancy Statistics) for this purpose, a total of 1.73 million, correlating the number of total spontaneous and elective abortions to the above mortality rates for spontaneous and elective abortions <-- 0.5 in 100,00 is equivalent to 1 in 200,000, divide 1.73 million by 200,00 and so on --> this translates to the following statistic number of mortalities (or deaths) which occur for spontaneous and elective abortions (but keep in mind the actual numbers may be higher or lower), (1) fewer than 8 weeks, 8.7 deaths, (2)11-12 weeks, 38 deaths, (3) 16-20 weeks, 242 deaths, 4) more than 21 weeks, 311 deaths. To put a face on these deaths, the Real Choice website features the names and cases of women killed during abortions.
Teri Huyck, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, told the Appleton Post-Crescent newspaper the video is questionable and Planned Parenthood dismisses the attacks as false and inflammatory. Also, Planned Parenthood once again cites the context of the video as unclear in part because the video is edited. However Lila Rose said her group plans to provide the raw, unedited video to authorities. She said she also will post full footage on the Live Action Web site but declined to say when. Despite Planned Parenthood's attempts to dismiss this video, I think the facts of the matter speak loud and clear, that two Planned Parenthood employees did indeed provide misleading and subjective information, in order to persuade this woman to choose abortion. It was wrong for Planned Parenthood staff to intentially misinform or withhold information from the woman about fetal development or information on what is going on in her own body, in order to suite their own ideological preferences. Medical professionals have an ethical and legal obligation to provide complete and accurate information, not just what suits their own personal or political agenda, which is what the Planned Parenthood staff is doing here. Planned Parenthood has come under fire recently after Live Action's investigations found its centers willing to conceal sexual abuse and accept donations targeted to preform abortions on African-Americans specifically.
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