Medical misinformation about pregnancy and reproductive health care is rampant, and we are all accountable for our role in stopping its spread. As a medical provider, I view this responsibility as inextricable from my duty to care.

Recently, an emergency medicine physician wrote a column on pregnancy development that urged South Carolinians to "follow the science" that state lawmakers used to ban abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy. The writer's foundational claim that a heartbeat is the "fundamental sign of life" is an argument grounded in principles of faith, not medicine. It is a claim often employed by anti-abortion politicians and activists to justify legislation that further restricts reproductive health care, particularly abortion.

Politics and policy aside, her commentary presented zero scientific truths and relied heavily on emotional rhetoric.

Let's lay out the facts.

Cardiac development, like all gestational development, is a gradual and complex process that continues throughout a pregnancy. At six weeks of pregnancy, we are talking about a clump of cells that give off what we call electrical "cardiac activity." As a gynecologist, I can tell you that the existence of cardiac activity in the early stages of embryonic development does not equate to self-sustaining life, and it is not clinically accurate to characterize these electrical impulses as a heartbeat. In fact, what people hear during an ultrasound at these very early stages of pregnancy is actually sound produced by the machine, not the embryo. Even after this initial cardiac development begins, numerous biological milestones are still required in order to make it possible for a pregnancy to become viable outside of the womb.

From a practical perspective as a woman, and as a physician who takes care of the reproductive health of other women, I can attest that many people will not know they are pregnant at six weeks. At this time, their developing pregnancy is less than one-fifth of an inch long, and many won't exhibit any apparent symptoms. But at this point, the S.C. Legislature has already taken the decision about what comes next away from them. As an OB-GYN with more than a decade of clinical experience, I've been forced to have these hard conversations with patients more frequently than I ever wanted to in the past two years.

We all have a right to hold our own opinions, practice our faith, and make personal decisions based on our worldview. That is at the core of our freedoms in this country. But when it comes to informing the public about their bodies and their health, trusted messengers like health care providers must ensure the information is backed by evidence-based research and accepted medical best practices.

Dr. Erica F. Robinson is a fellowship-trained gynecologist based in Greenville.