So far this year, 11 states have enacted 90 laws meant to restrict abortion — the most in a single year since the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
Now, lawmakers in nine U.S. states have passed laws banning abortions when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, or at six weeks of pregnancy, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization for sexual and reproductive health research and advocacy.
But what exactly do we mean when we talk about a "fetal heartbeat" at six weeks of pregnancy? Although some people might picture a heart-shaped organ beating inside a fetus, this is not the case.
Rather, at six weeks of pregnancy, an ultrasound can detect "a little flutter in the area that will become the future heart of the baby," said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami. This flutter happens because the group of cells that will become the future "pacemaker" of the heart gain the capacity to fire electrical signals, she said.