“These pictures, combined with the commentary in the article, erroneously assert that a 6-10 week pregnancy is just a clump of cells, nothing more, or that it’s too small to be seen without a microscope,” she explained.
“This organization’s website states that they removed portions of the tissue and washed off the blood to show ‘the gestational sac alone.’ This means either they removed the embryo from the pregnancy tissue, or the embryo has been so destroyed by the abortion process that it cannot be distinguished from the rest of the tissue photographed,” she said.
“A gestational sac is all we see in early pregnancies (see photos above) as the embryo is not yet visible,” the website states. “What you see here is the gestational sac alone.”
Francis debunked MYA Network’s claims, saying that a fetus at that stage would be clearly visible.
“In fact, between 6 and 10 weeks’ gestation, the embryo grows into a fetus, from the size of a baked bean to the size of a prune. In many cases, they are, in fact, visible to the naked eye. Many women who have experienced a miscarriage or medication abortion can attest to this,” she said.
“This article is insulting to those women, and the misinformation within it does a disservice to all women. It intends to dehumanize preborn human beings, but anyone who has sat through a basic human development class or visited a pregnancy website should be able to see through it,” she said.
“The Guardian has deceitfully and strategically chosen to feature an image of the gestational sac around the preborn child, while deceptively refusing to show the humanity of the child,” Noah Brandt, vice president of communications for Live Action, told CNA.
“Lying to women by entirely removing the beating heart, developing organs, and little toes of the person in the womb, calls into question the integrity of the Guardian,” he added.
MYA Network also claims that unborn children do not have heartbeats.
“At six weeks of pregnancy the so-called ‘heartbeat’ is just electrical activity of cells, before an actual heart is formed,” their website states — even though the long-standing medical consensus is that an unborn child’s heart begins to beat by six weeks’ gestation.
The group says its goal is to “counter misinformation with facts about what pregnancy tissue looks like in an early abortion or miscarriage.”
(Story continues below)
Subscribe to our daily newsletter
At Catholic News Agency, our team is committed to reporting the truth with courage, integrity, and fidelity to our faith. We provide news about the Church and the world, as seen through the teachings of the Catholic Church. When you subscribe to the CNA UPDATE, we'll send you a daily email with links to the news you need and, occasionally, breaking news.
As part of this free service you may receive occasional offers from us at EWTN News and EWTN. We won't rent or sell your information, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
The MYA Network did not respond to CNA’s request for comment.
Edie Heipel is a former Political Correspondent for CNA's Washington, D.C. bureau. She previously worked in communications for Center for Renewing America, served in the Trump White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and has been a contributor to various outlets including The Federalist and The Charlotte Lozier Institute. She is a graduate of Wheaton College.