NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Dr. Michael Cackovic has treated his share of pregnant women. So when Republican lawmakers across the U.S.
began passing bans on abortion at what they term “the first detectable fetal heartbeat,” he was exasperated. That's because at the point where advanced technology can detect that first flutter, as early as six weeks, the embryo isn’t yet a fetus and it doesn’t have a heart. “You cannot hear this ’flutter,’ it is only seen on ultrasound,” said Cackovic, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center, where some 5,300 babies are born each year.
Yet bans pegged to the “fetal heartbeat” concept have been signed into law in 13 states, including Cackovic’s home state of Ohio.