Bill introduced in Chile requires abortion seekers to hear child's heartbeat

Conservative politicians in Chile have introduced a bill that will require a woman to listen to the heartbeat of her preborn child before undergoing an abortion.

Key Takeaways:

• Lawmakers in Chile have presented an initiative that would require women to listen to their preborn child's heartbeat before receiving an abortion.

• If the mother refuses, the abortionist would not be allowed to commit the abortion.

• Abortion supporters are railing against the bill, and one Chilean Dominican religious sister has publicly called requiring a woman to listen to her preborn child's heartbeat, "torture."

The Details:

The legislative initiative, "Listen to Their Heart," was presented to the country's Congress on June 25. It would modify Article 119 of the Health Code to require abortionists to inform women about “embryonic or fetal cardiac activity” and offer them “the opportunity to listen to it.”

If the woman chooses to opt-out of listening to the heartbeat of her preborn child, the abortionist would be required to refuse to commit the abortion.

"There can be nothing less ideological than a baby’s heartbeat and a law that allows its heartbeat to be heard before its death,” the legislation says.

The initiative is receiving widespread criticism among abortion supporters in the country. But the bill's author, Cristóbal Urruticoechea, has defended the legislation as another necessary protection for preborn life.

"They always talk about the mother, but they don't talk about the child," he said.

Abortion in Chile was decriminalized in 2017 and is currently allowed for cases of rape, risk to the mother's life, or a life-limiting fetal diagnosis. If it passes, this law would apply to women seeking abortion in those cases.

Why it Matters:

Abortion advocates fight legislation like this because it disproves the oft-touted claim that the preborn child isn't a human, and is only a clump of cells. Meaningless clumps of cells don't have heartbeats.

The sound of the heartbeat is evidence that the child in the womb is living and growing. Expectant parents often cherish the moments they get to hear their baby's heartbeat, because that heartbeat is a sign of new human life.

However, one religiou sister has gone public in expressing her belief that this requirement is tantamount to "torture," because abortion is legal in Chile for only three reasons: "risk to the mother’s life, lethal fetal pathology, and pregnancy resulting from rape." Dominican sister Licarayén Torres, who is reportedly "linked to the Ecclesiastical Faculty of Theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, Chile," made her remarks in an Instagram video.

Infovaticana.com reported her statements:

“Abortion in Chile is not on demand; it is subject to the three grounds you all know well. The question that arises for me is whether it is necessary to torture women in this way. I say this from my role as a woman, as a religious sister, and as a follower of Jesus and his Gospel,” she stated.

Torres then asked whether the proposal could be considered compatible with Christianity.

“Is it Christian, is it evangelical, to subject women to this obligation that some deputies seek to impose?” she asked.

The Catholic website continued:

The religious sister concluded precisely by calling for the protection of life “from the beginning, but also until the end.”

“I would like to ask you to propose, with the same urgency, laws that promote justice and peace for the children and young people of our territories. If we must listen to the cry of the innocent, let us do so from the beginning, but also until the end of life,” she declared.

Her words, however, were spoken to reject a measure that seeks to ensure women know about the existence of cardiac activity in the child before deciding on an abortion.

The Bottom Line:

When abortionists are required to share that life-affirming sound with an abortion-minded mother, there is a chance that she might change her mind.

It isn't "torture" to acknowledge that, regardless of the difficulty or tragedy of the circumstance, a woman or girl has a right to be fully aware of what an abortion does to an innocent human being. An abortion cannot be undone.