The Atlantic retracts claim that fetal heartbeats are 'imaginary'

The Atlantic one of Washington liberal rag-mags of record published a fake article attacking ultrasound technology. It then published several updates to fix their fake facts without acknowledging the extent of the corrections.

The fake article was "How the Ultrasound Pushed the Idea That a Fetus is a Person" on Tuesday. In a 2,500 word article, it argued that ultrasound technology "has been used to create an imaginary 'heartbeat' and sped-up videos that falsely depict a response to stimulus." 


The article, by Moira Weigel, a Yale PhD candidate in comparative literature, included no less than three major errors that the publication corrected. It originally claimed that fetal heartbeats depicted in ultrasound are "imaginary" because there is no heart in the body during the early stages of development.

Weigel should stick with comparative literature.

"It is dubious to call this movement a 'heartbeat'; there is no heart to speak of [at six weeks]," she wrote.

Actual medical experts and medical textbooks disagree with the comparative literature PhD candidate.

According to the Mayo Clinic's website, "just four weeks after conception, the neural tube along your baby's back is closing and your baby's heart is pumping blood."

The Atlantic deleted that sentence from the fake story, dropping all mention of heartbeats captured by ultrasound were imaginary. The editors revised the headline to read: "How Ultrasounds Became Political: The technology has been used to create sped-up videos that falsely depict a response to stimulus."


Weigel also got John Kasich's governorship wrong--he is not the governor of Indiana (that was Mike Pence) but Ohio. 

Sloppy research.

It was Kasich's veto of fetal heartbeat legislation to which the article referred.

The really annoying thing was that The Atlantic didn't publish a notice of correction along with its edits. A spokes liar for the rag mag said the "editors were still reviewing" the article four hours after publication. 

Sloppy editors.

When a correction was posted on the site, it didn't reflect the other changes made on the fake article.

"This article originally stated that there is 'no heart to speak of' in a six-week-old fetus. By that point in a pregnancy, a heart has already begun to form. We regret the error," it says.

This is what you get when liberal literature majors try writing a convincing liberal article using science as the medium--it just goes beyond their ken. 



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