The Kentucky Senate race — likely pitting Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell against Democratic challenger, and former Marine fighter pilot, Amy McGrath — is playing out on the airwaves. But the recent TV ads don’t always square with the facts.
A viral Facebook post falsely claims that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “wouldn’t release 8.5 billion for Coronavirus without abortion funding.” A House bill providing $8.3 billion in relief was already signed into law. The “abortion funding” claim is a distortion of a separate debate over a different bill.
A meme misquotes Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on a proposed abortion bill that aims to address nonviable pregnancies and severe fetal abnormalities. Northam, a pediatric neurologist, supports the bill, but the meme falsely implies he condones infanticide.
An Instagram post misleadingly claims a young rape victim can be “thrown in prison” for receiving an abortion in Alabama. Under a new law, which has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge, criminal charges could be brought against doctors who perform abortions, but not women receiving them.
Q: When is the human heart fully developed, and when are heartbeats audible during pregnancy?
A: A developing heart has all of its primary structures after about nine weeks of pregnancy. Some forms of ultrasound can detect cardiac activity in an embryo in the sixth week, but a heartbeat wouldn’t be audible until about 10 weeks on a Doppler fetal monitor.
Over the course of 17 hours, President Donald Trump repeated 17 false and misleading claims that we have written about since he became president.
A website known for spreading misinformation writes that a man who cited religious reasons for not paying his income taxes “has won an historic lawsuit against the IRS.” That’s misleading. One charge was dropped, but four others have yet to be determined.
In the midst of a chickenpox outbreak in his state, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin said that he had not vaccinated any of his children against the disease, choosing instead to purposely expose his kids to an infected person to get the chickenpox — a practice that public health officials say is dangerous.
Republicans and Democrats traded accusations on the topic of abortion after a “born-alive” bill failed in the Senate. Democrats say the legislation was unnecessary and aimed at restricting access to legal abortion, while Republicans say it was about protecting babies. We’ll go through what the recent legislation said and what both sides are saying about it.
A viral meme claims that Girl Scout cookies support Planned Parenthood, but the organization says it has no “relationship or partnership with Planned Parenthood.”