Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams said recently there is "no such thing" as a fetal heartbeat at six weeks gestation. Abrams made this outrageous claim in a speech in Atlanta, saying, "it is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have the right to take control of a woman's body." Abrams has also suggested that Georgia's heartbeat law shouldn't be referred to as a "heartbeat law" because "that's medically false, biologically a lie."
As an OB/GYN who cared for women and their babies for almost 30 years, I have been unable to get these disgraceful comments out of my mind. I have personally been in the room when women first heard the beautiful sound of their baby's heartbeat. It is truly a magical moment and you don't need to be a medical doctor to be able to say that. Millions of women who have experienced the wonder of pregnancy would agree with me. Over the course of nearly three decades, I delivered more than 3,000 children in North Texas. I have spent hours listening to newborns' miraculous cries. In the brief silence between those incredible shouts, I heard the hums and alerts of the remarkable medical technologies which monitored the mother and child—and had tracked their health for months prior to delivery.
Thousands of doctors across the country have spent long years in medical school and residency studying medicine to care for the most vulnerable among us. When I took the Hippocratic Oath to help mothers welcome their precious children into the world, I never wasted time considering anything other than the mother or child's best interest. The idea that we could somehow "manufacture" a sound to limit women and their families is egregiously false. In both my career as a medical doctor and my time as a member of Congress, my work has centered around my belief in protecting and optimizing human life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. These unalienable rights are afforded to all Americans, enshrined by the Declaration of Independence, protected by our government and its public servants, and bolstered by hard-working men and women in every industry—particularly those in health care who sacrifice so much every day for the healing of others.
The reality is this: Abrams is trying to spread blatantly false information to back up her radical pro-abortion agenda. She has made clear that pro-abortion Democrats will stop at nothing to impose abortion on demand. These disingenuous comments are an attempt to dehumanize the baby in the womb. You might ask, "Why would they be doing this?" The answer is clear: life is winning, and they are grasping at straws.
June 24, 2022, marked a turn in the tide of the abortion fight in America when the 40-year precedent of Roe v. Wade was overturned. But even before the final decision came down, intimidation tactics were used when a leaked first-draft opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case authored by Justice Samuel Alito, writing for a majority, was published in early May. The publishing of this opinion was an unprecedented attack on the integrity of the Supreme Court. The Justices were not intimidated, however, and the Court sent the battle for life back to the states.
Unlike when Roe was first decided in 1973 and ultrasound technology was in its infancy, we now can see the distinctly human qualities of babies in the womb. People like Ms. Abrams would like to pretend these are "clumps of cells" or "manufactured sounds." They are not. Science has finally caught up with the lie of abortion, and science is on the side of life.
Congressman Michael Burgess, M.D. (OB/GYN), a Republican, represents Texas' 26th Congressional District.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
