5 Feet of Fury

Alternative facts! ‘Atlantic’ retracts story claiming fetuses don’t have heartbeats

The Atlantic published “How the Ultrasound Pushed the Idea That a Fetus Is a Person” on Tuesday. The 2,500-word article 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 doctoral candidate in comparative literature, included at least three major errors that the publication corrected.

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The Atlantic later deleted the sentence from the story, dropping any mention that heartbeats captured by ultrasound were imaginary. Editors revised the headline and sub-headline to read: “How Ultrasounds Became Political: The technology has been used to create sped-up videos that falsely depict a response to stimulus.”

The article also incorrectly described John Kasich as the governor of Indiana…