NEW YORK TIMES APOLOGIZES FOR USING `FETUS' AS WORDLE SOLUTION AMID ROE V. WADE

The New York Times has removed the word “fetus” from its Wordle answers in order to keep the game “distinct from the news”, the company said in a statement.

“Today, some users may see an outdated answer for Wordle that seems closely connected to a major recent news event,” the statement continued.

The “major recent news event” likely refers to the ongoing Roe v. Wade debate that has resurfaced after Politico broke the news on the U.S. Supreme Court's leaked draft decision to overturn abortion rights.

“This is entirely unintentional and a coincidence — today's original answer was loaded into Wordle last year,” the New York Times said.

Wordle switched to the word “shine” in an attempt to avoid using a politically charged term, although some users did not have the updated version of the game.

“It can be difficult to change words that have already been loaded into the game,” they said. “When we discovered last week that this particular word would be featured today, we switched it for as many solvers as possible.”

The “very unusual circumstance” has prompted the company to revamp its technology so that everyone always receives the same word.

Since the New York Time's' acquisition of Wordle in January, a number of pre-selected answers that were deemed offensive — such as “slave,” “lynch,” and “wench” — have been removed from the platform.

Alternative versions of the app, such as “the bad word game” Lewdle and a four-letter cursing-based version called Sweardle, have surfaced in response to Wordle's censorship.