The abortion industry desperately tries to dehumanize unborn babies, describing them as “products of conception,” “clumps of cells,” “tissue,” “goo” or, a new one, “cotton balls.”
Live Action News discovered the new description for unborn babies in an abortion training curriculum from the University of California San Francisco, a taxpayer-funded school.
The curriculum, “Training in Early Abortion for Comprehensive Healthcare (TEACH),” updated in June, also removes references to an unborn baby’s heartbeat and denies strong scientific evidence about when unborn babies can feel pain, according to the report.
One section tells abortionists-in-training how to handle situations when mothers ask to see their aborted babies after the procedure.
For first-trimester abortions, “many providers start by normalizing this desire, and showing the patient the pregnancy tissue,” the curriculum states. “Many providers show it to the patient after clearing blood and decidual tissue, in a small open container. If asked what they can expect to see, consider describing what the tissue looks like at that stage, so they can make an informed choice about seeing it.”
Even though unborn babies have hearts and brains, fingers and toes very early in pregnancy, the program says women should be told that “before 9 weeks it is difficult to visualize fetal parts.”
To try to convince women that their unborn babies are not really babies yet, TEACH instructs abortionists to tell women, “The pregnancy may look like a blood clot or a cotton ball.’”
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For later abortions, the curriculum encourages trainees to discourage women from looking at their aborted babies.
“For later gestations, consider asking tactfully what the patient expects to see. Alert the patient that the fetus may not be intact and that some recognizable parts will be visible, and confirm they still want to see,” it states.
The revised curriculum adopts new, deceptive talking points from the pro-abortion movement, too. Whereas previous versions mentioned the “embryo with heartbeat,” the 2022 version does not; according to Live Action, TEACH now says, “Cardiac activity appears around 6 ½ weeks” and describes the unborn baby as an “embryo with cardiac activity.”
The change is propaganda, not science. Most doctors and scientists still refer to it as a “heartbeat.” A few years ago, the prestigious University of Oxford and the British Health Association published an amazing study suggesting that the human heart may begin beating as early as 16 days after conception.
Until recently, Planned Parenthood – the largest abortion chain in the U.S. – also admitted on its website that an unborn baby has a heartbeat. The website used to state that by five to six weeks of pregnancy, “a very basic beating heart and circulatory system develop.”
The changes likely were prompted by growing public support for state heartbeat laws that ban abortions once an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable.
Other problems with the TEACH training manual include denying the strong scientific evidence that unborn babies can feel pain by 20 weeks of pregnancy, if not earlier. It tells trainees, “Evidence regarding the capacity for fetal pain indicates that fetal perception of pain is unlikely before the third trimester.”
The pro-abortion misinformation is not surprising given the source. The TEACH program receives taxpayer funding as well as private donations from Danco and GenBioPro LLCs, two abortion drug manufacturers. It also receives money from the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund, the Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation, The Rapidian Foundation and Women’s Foundation of California, according to the report.
Suzan Goodman, a professor at the University of California San Francisco and former Planned Parenthood employee, is the co-founder, co-editor and curriculum director for TEACH.
