Kerby Anderson

Some prominent figures over the last few weeks have made some puzzling statements about abortion. In fact, some would call them misleading or even deceitful, but I would rather give them the benefit of doubt. Perhaps they never thought much about abortion until the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs forced them to think about the topic.

Pro-life activist Lila Rose was on the Dr. Phil program with Phil McGraw. He disputed the fact that life begins at conception. She countered that 96 percent of scientists say life begins at fertilization and that it’s a scientific fact. He responded, “Actually, it’s not.” And went on to say that there was no consensus when life begins.

Of course, you can go out on the Internet and find sites that list 41 quotes from medical textbooks that say life begins at conception. You can find statements by doctors and medical organizations saying the same thing, though some do add that it may be controversial to say that a genetically unique cell is a person.

The democratic candidate for governor of Georgia denied that the unborn have a heartbeat at six weeks. Instead, Stacey Abrams argued that the sound we hear “is a manufactured sound.” Imagine the extent of a conspiracy you would have to believe to assume that sonographers are manufacturing the sound of a heartbeat.

Again, you can go out on the Internet and find quotes from leading medical textbooks and journals explaining that the heart and major blood vessels develop around day 16 and begin to pump through those vessels by day 20 to 22. By the way, the sound you hear is the movement of blood cells that changes in pitch. This is called the Doppler effect.

These are puzzling statements to hear when the subject of abortion has been debated for decades and there is an abundance of medical facts refuting them.