please respond to the following discussion post as a peer making a comment. Recently in Texas, a new act was enabled called the Texas Heartbeat Act; this bans abortion after detecting an embryonic or fetal cardiac activity. The fetal heartbeat usually occurs after about six weeks of pregnancy. This bill was enacted and passed through the Senate and the House on March 11, 2021, and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas on May 19, 2021. The Texas Heartbeat Act was controversial regarding ethical concerns, political views, and Christian values. This act also had very ethical considerations on the topic and addressed different healthcare issues. Therefore, I chose an article on call, Why “heartbeat bill” is a misleading name for Texas’ near-total abortion ban. This healthcare issue held a lot of medical controversy regarding when cardiac activity exists. Some doctors quoted that a heart be is where the opening and closing of cardiac valves and there are no cardiac valves at six weeks gestation. Some doctors say that the heartbeat you hear on ultrasound is electric activity and not an official heartbeat. However, Texas state law did define a fetal heart as cardiac activity and repetitive rhythmic contraction of the fetal heart within the gestational sac. Ethical dilemmas such as women’s autonomy rights may conflict with the fetus’ right to personhood and the doctor’s moral obligations to society.

This media article gave a fair description of both sides of pro-life and pro-choice. Unfortunately, the report broke down the law and the medical aspect in misleading terms. It also described doctors’ concerns that six weeks can be an issue when most women don’t know that they are pregnant until their four weeks and give patients only two weeks to decide. It also showed doctors disputing that this was cardiac activity once the ultrasound has a sound, whether it be a flutter. The journalist wrote this article demonstrating how things could be misleading and perceptions are different and medical opinions could differ. However, the journalist did not state his opinion on whether or not this law would benefit the public.