OB/GYN Interview 2

"Though pulsing cells can be detected in embryos as early as six weeks, this rhythm - "detected by a doctor, via ultrasound - "cannot be called a 'heartbeat,' because embryos don’t have hearts. What is detectable at or around six weeks can more accurately be called 'cardiac activity.' At this stage, what doctors can detect is essentially communication between a group of what will eventually become cardiac cells.

In a doctor/patient setting, though, physicians have used the term 'heartbeat' or 'fetal heartbeat' to convey to patients with wanted pregnancies that fetal development is proceeding as it should.

It simply isn’t true that a six-week embryo is viable. While there is no unanimous timeline assigned to viability, most doctors use 24 weeks as a general rule. But what arose as a colloquialism between doctors and patients has, in the case of the fight over abortion rights, done more harm than good.

At six weeks, a pregnant person has likely just missed their period two weeks earlier, and at that stage, the fetus is far from viable. So calling any activity detected by ultrasound at that stage a heartbeat 'personifies the fetus into something it’s not."
- Robyn Schickler, OB/GYN and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health.