田纳西州纳什维尔——美国最高法院允许得克萨斯州一项禁止大多数堕胎的法律继续有效，这标志着堕胎反对者的一个转折点，他们近十年来一直在努力实施更严格的限制。
德克萨斯州的法律规定了一项“胎儿心跳法案”，禁止在“第一次可检测到的心跳”时堕胎，这可能发生在怀孕6周左右，尽管该法案中没有具体规定这一时间范围。医学专家说，心脏直到胎儿至少九周大时才开始形成，他们谴责依靠医学上的不准确来促进堕胎禁令的努力。
尽管如此，至少有13个拥有共和党主导的立法机构的其他州也通过了类似的禁令，尽管法院阻止了所有这些禁令的实施。民主党人称德克萨斯州的新法律是对女性权利的违宪侵犯健康。
日益增长的反堕胎运动旨在达到美国最高法院。堕胎反对者希望唐纳德·特朗普总统领导下的保守派联盟将结束高等法院在里程碑式的1973年罗伊诉韦德案中确立的宪法堕胎权。
“胎儿心跳”这个术语扭曲了科学
先进的技术可以在胚胎六周内检测到细胞内的第一波电活动。这种颤动不是跳动的心脏，而是最终会变成心脏的心脏活动。胚胎在怀孕第八周之后被称为胎儿，实际的心脏在怀孕第九周和第十二周之间开始形成。
“这不是心跳，而是神经细胞在胚胎中上下管道的运动，”俄亥俄州立大学韦克斯纳医学中心的母体胎儿医学专家迈克尔·卡科维奇博士说，该中心每年约有5300名婴儿出生。
Cackovic说，超声波技术每年都在显著进步，使医生能够向他们的病人提供更好的信息，但他对医学上的这种进步被用来传播错误信息感到震惊。
“我们正在使用技术来检测早期心脏运动，基本上这是一个反射性的时刻，”Cackovic补充说。“但现在人们正在使用这项技术来推进他们的议程。”
2013年，利兹大学的一项开创性研究发现，虽然从怀孕第八周开始，人类心脏中出现了四个明确定义的心室，但它们在大约第20周之前仍然是“一团杂乱的组织”，比以前认为的要晚得多。
反堕胎活动家利用情感
怀孕六周就堕胎“会让心脏停止跳动”的说法是俄亥俄州活动家珍妮特·福尔杰·波特(Janet Folger Porter)提出的，她是美国最强烈的反对堕胎的人之一。
波特发现心形很容易推销，并通过分发心形气球和泰迪熊来加强她长达十年的游说努力，同时回避提案的包装是否符合医学事实。
她是一个两极分化的人物，即使在共和党人中也是如此，因为她多年来一直在游说和采取其他有争议的行动。值得注意的是，她安排了子宫内胎儿通过超声波进行“作证”。她也质疑总统巴拉克·奥巴马最近担任参议院候选人的女发言人罗伊·摩尔他否认了他猥亵一名14岁女孩的指控。
其他州加入进来
俄亥俄州花了近十年时间才签署了波特支持的堕胎禁令，但其他州最终也加入了进来，此前类似禁令的倡导者反映了她的策略，游说立法者，并使用“鼓起勇气”或“发发善心”等情绪化的短语。
阿肯色州和北达科他州是2013年首批通过这类法案的州之一。爱荷华州在2018年成为第三名。此后，大约有24个州在其立法机构中引入了类似的措施，但只有得克萨斯州的版本得以实施。
堕胎引发口水战已经不是第一次了
围绕堕胎法的政治指控、不准确或模糊的术语，已经发生了很多争斗。
“肢解流产”是堕胎反对者用来描述扩张和排空的术语，是一种常见的中期妊娠流产方法。其他人用“部分出生流产”来描述医学上所谓的完整扩张和提取。
在关于胎儿心脏活动的斗争中，反堕胎倡导者反驳说，使用医学术语会使胎儿失去人性。
EXPLAINER: The language, reach of new Texas abortion law
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The nation's highest court has allowed a Texas law banning most abortions to remain in effect, marking a turning point for abortion opponents who have been fighting to implement stronger restrictions for nearly a decade.
The Texas law, pegged a “fetal heartbeat bill,” bans abortions at the point of the “first detectable heartbeat,” which could happen around six weeks into pregnancy, although that timeframe isn’t specified in the measure. Medical experts say the heart doesn't begin to form until the fetus it is at least nine weeks old, and they decry efforts to promote abortion bans by relying on medical inaccuracies.
Nonetheless, at least 13 other states with Republican-dominated legislatures have adopted similar bans, although courts have blocked them all from being implemented. Democrats call the new Texas law an unconstitutional assault on women'shealth.
The growing anti-abortion campaign is intended to reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Abortion opponents hope the conservative coalition assembled under President Donald Trump will end the constitutional right to abortion as established by the high court in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
THE TERM ‘FETAL HEARTBEAT’ TWISTS THE SCIENCE
Advanced technology can detect a first flutter of electric activity within cells in an embryo as early as six weeks. This flutter isn’t a beating heart, it’s cardiac activity that will eventually become a heart. An embryo is termed a fetus after the eighth week of pregnancy, and the actual heart begins to form between the ninth and 12th weeks of pregnancy.
“It's not a heartbeat, it’s the motion of the neural cells going up and down tubes in an embryo,” said Dr. Michael Cackovic, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, where some 5,300 babies are born each year.
Cackovic said ultrasound technology significantly advances each year, allowing physicians to provide better information to their patients, but he's alarmed that such advances in medicine have been used to promote misinformation.
“We’re using technology to detect early cardiac motion, basically it's a reflexive moment,” Cackovic added. “But now people are using this technology to forward their agenda.”
In 2013, a pioneering University of Leeds study found that while four clearly defined chambers appear in the human heart from the eighth week of pregnancy, they remain “a disorganized jumble of tissue” until around the 20th week, much later than previously believed.
ANTI-ABORTION ACTIVIST TAPS INTO EMOTION
The notion that abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy “stops a beating heart” is a concept originated by Ohio activist Janet Folger Porter, one of the nation’s fiercest advocates for banning the procedure.
Porter found that hearts were easy to market and punctuated her decade-long lobbying efforts by distributing heart-shaped balloons and teddy bears, all while side-stepping whether the packaging of the proposal was medically true.
She's a polarizing figure, even among Republicans, due to her lobbying stunts and other controversial actions she's exercised over the years. Notably, she arranged “testimony” via ultrasound by an in utero fetus. She also questions PresidentBarack Obama’s citizenship and more recently served as spokeswoman for Senate candidateRoy Moore, of Alabama, who has denied allegations that he molested a 14-year-old girl.
OTHER STATES JUMP ON BOARD
It took Ohio nearly a decade to sign off on the abortion ban backed by Porter, but other states eventually got on board, after advocates for similar bans mirrored her tactics lobbying lawmakers and using emotive phrases such as “take heart” or “have a heart.”
Arkansas and North Dakota were among the first states to pass these types of bills in 2013. Iowa became the third in 2018. About two dozen states have since introduced similar measures inside their legislatures, but only Texas' version has been enacted.
NOT THE FIRST TIME ABORTION HAS SPARKED WAR OVER WORDS
Plenty of battles have taken place over politically charged, inaccurate or vague terminology over abortion laws.
“Dismemberment abortion” is a term abortion opponents use to describe dilation and evacuation, a common second trimester abortion method. Others used “partial-birth abortion” to describe what is medically called intact dilation and extraction.
In the fight over fetal cardiac activity, anti-abortion advocates counter that using medical terminology dehumanizes the unborn.
