Planned Parenthood changes website to seemingly deny that unborn babies have a heartbeat at 6 weeks: 'It sounds like a heartbeat ..., but ...'

Planned Parenthood has recently altered the information it lists on its website regarding gestational development to obfuscate that unborn babies have a beating heart within six weeks of conception.

As LifeNews.com first noted back in late August, the website for Planned Parenthood used to state that "during week 5 - 6" of embryonic development, a "very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop." Internet archive site Way Back Machine indicates that such language could be seen on the website as recently as July 25.

However, since that time, Planned Parenthood has adjusted its language so as not to admit that an unborn baby has a detectable heartbeat at just five or six weeks. The website now reads that at that stage, a "part of the embryo starts to show cardiac activity.

"It sounds like a heartbeat on an ultrasound," the website continues, "but it's not a fully-formed heart — it's the earliest stage of the heart developing."

Many have speculated that Planned Parenthood "stealth-edited" its website so as to dodge or circumvent the fetal heartbeat laws that many states have adopted and begun to enforce, now that the Supreme Court of the United States sent the abortion issue back to the individual states.

Georgia is one such state. Georgia bans abortion after a heartbeat can be detected. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed the heartbeat bill into law in 2019, and it went into effect shortly following the Dobbs ruling from SCOTUS.

Kemp is up for reelection this November. His opponent, Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, made waves on Tuesday when she called the fetal heartbeat detected by an ultrasound machine "manufactured."

"There is no such thing as a heartbeat at six weeks," Abrams said during a speech at Morehouse College. "It is a manufactured sound designed to convince people that men have a right to take control of a woman’s body."

She also called the reality of a fetal heartbeat "medically false" and "biologically a lie" and recently told the ladies of "The View" that she supports abortion "until the time of birth" in some circumstances.

However, many medical resources refute Abrams's assertions. The website for the Mayo Clinic says that "the heart and other organs also are starting to form and the heart begins to beat" at around four weeks gestation, and researchers at the University of Oxford claim that "the heart is the first organ to form during pregnancy."

Planned Parenthood Southeast Advocates, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and EMILY's List have all endorsed Stacey Abrams in the Georgia gubernatorial race. It is unclear whether these organizations have made donations to her campaign as well.