Stacey Abrams claimed that fetal heartbeats are a “manufactured sound” that allows men to “take control of a woman’s body” and restrict abortion rights.
A new video circulating on social media shows Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate sharing her latest views on abortion.
“At six weeks there is no heartbeat,” she said. “It’s an artificial sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman’s body.”
Once-pro-life Abrams targeted legislation banning abortions after six weeks, when doctors can hear “fetal heartbeats.”
The term refers to the electrical signal detected by ultrasound machines from electrical activity in an embryo, not an actual heartbeat produced by the opening and closing of the heart valves. The murmurs can only be detected by invasive vaginal ultrasound.
The statement comes a week after Abrams revealed in The View that she supports abortions “up to the point of birth” in some cases.
Stacey Abrams (second from left), Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate, said she believes the fetal heartbeat is a “manufactured sound” used to restrict abortion rights
Abrams was targeting the state’s controversial “heartbeat law,” which bans most abortions after six weeks if a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat
Georgia is among nine states to amend its controversial “heartbeat statutes” following the overthrow of Roe v. Wade reinstated or are working to reintroduce them by the Supreme Court this summer.
Georgia law of 2019 bans most abortions after six weeks, when a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat. Because most women don’t know they’re pregnant after six weeks, the law effectively bans all abortions.
Abrams’ statement of manufactured fetal heartbeats mirrors statements by OBGYN Dr. Nisha Verma of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, who said the term was misleading.
“By the sixth week of pregnancy, those valves don’t exist anymore,” she told NPR in March, explaining that a heart isn’t forming at that point.
“The flicker we see on the ultrasound so early in the development of pregnancy is actually electrical activity, and the sound you’re ‘hearing’ is actually being made by the ultrasound machine.”
Last week, Abrams told The View moderators that she supports abortions “up to the point of birth” in some cases, saying the issue is medical, not political
Abrams, who said she was raised against life, presented her new views on abortion while on The View last week.
When asked by the show’s new Conservative host, Alyssa Farah Griffin, if she believed there should be a restriction on abortion, Abrams said, “Viability is the metric, and when a woman’s health or life is in danger, prolonged.” viability up to the point of birth.’
Abrams added that abortion is a “medical decision, not a political one,” and called various state-imposed restrictions on the practice “arbitrary.”
The stance deviates far from Abrams’ earlier views on the issue, when she criticized a friend in college who was contemplating an abortion.
However, her views changed when she considered running for office, according to a profile of Abrams in The New York Times.
She admitted this on CNN’s State of the Union show in August, saying she had begun to reevaluate her religious upbringing and her pro-life position in college.
“I was anti-abortion until I went to college. And that’s where I met a friend who shares my beliefs, but we started having conversations about what reproductive care and abortion care really are,” she said.
A new poll shows Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is eight points ahead of Democrat Stacey Abrams with less than 50 days until the midterm elections
Earlier this week, Abrams made abortion rights the focus of her campaign bid against Governor Brian Kemp, to whom she lost in 2018 despite insisting the election was stolen.
“Women deserve full citizenship in the United States and certainly in the state of Georgia and they are being denied that because of Brian Kemp’s 6-week ban,” she told CNN.
Kemp has repeatedly defended the six-week ban, saying he will not allow the election to focus on abortion but on the economy.
According to the most recent Quinnipiac poll, Kemp is leading the race, with 50 percent of voters supporting the Republican governor, compared to 48 percent supporting Abrams.
The poll is slightly positive from that published by the local Atlanta Journal-Constitution, in which Abrams was down to 42 percent while Kemp still trailed him with 50 percent of the voters.
The poll found that while 57 percent of voters wanted to know the candidate’s opinion on abortion, a staggering 41 percent said inflation was Georgia’s main problem, while just 12 said the same about abortion.
