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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
National
Zahra Mulroy

Woman's bid to shame pro-choicers with 6 week foetus image gets shattered by science

Earlier this week, Alabama became the newest state to pass a bill which restricts a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy .

The ongoing debate - fuelled by six other states passing repressive abortion legislation - has proven to be a controversial and divisive topic.

Crackdowns on the cut-off point at which a woman can have a termination could see abortions past the eight-week (and sometimes earlier) mark be outlawed.

It's a scary, uncertain time for women's reproductive rights and, into the raging debate pro-life campaigner Liz Wheeler recently waded in.

Conservative commentator Liz tweeted an image of a six-week-old embryo with the caption: "This is 'two weeks late on your period.' Two weeks late has arms & legs forming, fingers & toes, & a heartbeat!"

(@Liz_Wheeler)

It seems Liz's point was that at six weeks (a stage when many women don't yet realise they're pregnant), a termination would be akin to murder, owing to the physiology of the embryo.

Unfortunately for Liz, her tweet got picked up by Emily M , who pulled apart her argument with some cold, hard, science.

She replied: "It does not, however, have a brain. It has not developed a cerebral cortex & therefore is still about 8 weeks from even being able to breathe or swallow.

"It is at least 6 weeks away from the development of the frontal or temporal lobes of the brain."

(The latest state to pass abortion restrictions is Alabama, where the state senate approved legislation that places a near-total ban on ending a pregnancy, even in cases of rape and incest)

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"At 6 weeks, the electrical activity in what would develop into a brain is less developed than the nervous system of a shrimp. Six weeks is 17 weeks from having brain processing power to react to adverse stimuli."

"'It is starting to form legs!' isn't relevant. You don’t need legs to be living or a human.

"You do, however, need a brain and the ability to breathe. Two weeks after a missed period, what the body has created is an embryo (not even a fetus yet) that is less developed than shrimp."

But Emily wasn't quite done, and added: "Also, since Liz didn’t provide a scale for her image—an embryo is about 0.2 inches big (the size of a sweet pea) at 6 weeks."

It's a frightening time for women's reproductive rights (AFP/Getty Images)

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Emily's response quickly attracted a lot of praise - and a lot of criticism from pro-lifers.

Her point is one which uses cool rationale and facts. Sadly, some aspects of the debate are designed to emotionally manipulate.

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