DISPATCHES FROM THE PRESIDENT OF UNITED EARTH: Stacey Abrams Drops Insanely Conspiratorial Take, and I Think I Know Why. “I’ve heard a lot of wild statements about abortion over the years, but the idea that fetal heartbeats are actually not real but are a conspiracy hatched by men to control the bodies of women is a new one. Scientifically, she’s just wrong. Fetal heartbeats absolutely exist at six weeks and can be observed. In fact, it’s very normal to get an ultrasound around that point and the first thing they do is find the heartbeat.”

Did Abrams steal her shtick from the Gray Lady? Heartless at the New York Times: “The New York Times wants you to understand that the heartbeat of an unborn child at six weeks’ gestation isn’t really a heartbeat. The heart, you see, isn’t fully developed. It’s ‘only a primitive tube of cardiac cells that emit electric pulses and pump blood.’ As for the sound you hear at an ultrasound appointment at that stage of pregnancy? It’s ‘created by the machine itself, which translates the waves of electrical activity into something audible.’”

(Classical reference in headline.)