Planned Parenthood edits fact sheet to say no heartbeat at 6 weeks of fetal development

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Planned Parenthood president: Abortion could 'save' democracy

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Abortion provider Planned Parenthood stealth-edited its language about fetal development, now asserting that there is no heartbeat between weeks five and six of gestation.

The changes made to the organization's website were noticed Thursday after Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams claimed that there is no such thing as a six-week heartbeat.

As recently as July 25 of this year, Planned Parenthood stated that in the fifth and sixth weeks of gestation "a very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop" within the fetus.

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The Louisville, Kentucky, Planned Parenthood, on April 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Piper Hudspeth Blackburn, File)

Pro-life news outlet Life News noted the change at the end of August.

Now, Planned Parenthood instead claims that at five to six weeks "a part of the embryo starts to show cardiac activity." 

The website goes out of its way to differentiate this "cardiac activity" from a "heartbeat."

"It sounds like a heartbeat on an ultrasound, but it's not a fully-formed heart – it's the earliest stage of the heart developing," the organization now claims.

Planned Parenthood's gestational information regarding weeks seven and eight has not changed, still stating that at such point "the heart has formed."

Stacey Abrams claims that the sound of fetal heartbeats is "manufactured" by men seeking to "take control" of women. (iStock)

Fox News Digital reached out to Planned Parenthood for clarification on exactly when the language was changed.

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Abrams claimed that the sound of such fetal heartbeats is "manufactured" by men seeking to "take control" of women.

"There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks," Abrams, who is running against incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, said Wednesday. "It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman's body."

Stacey Abrams speaks onstage during the Beautiful Noise Live Equality on the Ballot panel at Buckhead Theatre on Sept. 19, 2022, in Atlanta. (Marcus Ingram/Getty Images)

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The information disseminated by Planned Parenthood and Abrams contradicts years of established research into fetal development.

According to the National Library of Medicine, at five weeks, "the baby's brain, spinal cord, and heart begin to develop" and by week six its "heart continues to grow and now beats at a regular rhythm. This can be seen by vaginal ultrasound."

According to March of Dimes – a major women's health advocacy nonprofit founded under the Roosevelt administration – at five weeks "[the] baby's heart and lungs are developing, and [the] baby's heart starts to beat." 

Volunteer clinic escort Kaleb Masterson outside of a Planned Parenthood in Columbus, Ohio, Nov. 12, 2021. (Reuters/Gaelen Morse)

The organization says of the sixth week, "[the] baby's heart beats about 105 times a minute."

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According to the United Kingdom's National Health Service, "the heart is forming as a simple tube-like structure" in the fifth week of gestation and "[the] baby already has some of its own blood vessels and blood begins to circulate."