NPR Claims an Unborn Baby’s Heartbeat is Just “Sounds From the Fetus”

By Erin Parfet
Life News

The liberal news media has struggled to avoid life-affirming language about unborn babies when writing about Ohio’s Heartbeat Bill in the past few weeks, but NPR managed to find a way.

The bill, which passed both Ohio houses but was vetoed by the governor, would prohibit abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable, about six weeks into the pregnancy.

It is generally accepted fact that an unborn child’s heart begins to beat by about 22 days after conception. In October, however, Oxford University researchers announced findings that an unborn child’s heartbeat may begin even earlier at 16 days after conception.

But in NPR’s reporting of the bill, the radio news outlet minimized these facts by describing the bill as “tied to sounds from the fetus.”

The Federalist’s Bre Payton said she first noticed the euphemistic language on Tuesday as she drove past the NPR building in Washington, D.C.

The ticker that she saw read, “Republican governor decided the time-limit measure is more likely to withstand legal challenges than a separate bill tied to sounds from the fetus.”

Online, she also found an NPR report that put the words “heartbeat bill” in quotes in the headline. A brief description of the article mentioned “sounds from the fetus” rather than heartbeat, and the article itself described it as the “so-called heartbeat bill.”

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