The New York Times removed 'fetus' as a Wordle answer after the Roe v. Wade leak, but it's still showing up for some players

• Warning: There are spoilers ahead.
• The NYT removed "fetus" as Monday's Wordle answer after a leaked Supreme Court draft suggested Roe v. Wade would be overturned.
• It said the word was put into the system last year and that the timing was a "coincidence."

The New York Times removed "fetus" as the answer for Monday's Wordle after a Supreme Court draft suggested Roe v. Wade would be overturned — but the word is still showing as the right answer for some players.

The Times said in a statement on Monday that the fact that "fetus" was the original correct answer was a "entirely unintentional and a coincidence."

It said that the word and that all of the game's correct answers were loaded into the game last year, before The Times bought the game from its creator.

The Times described the fetus answer as "outdated," alluding to the recent leaked Supreme Court opinion that suggests abortion rights in the US may be overturned.

"Some users may see an outdated answer that seems closely connected to a major recent news event," the statement said.

The Times said that it had faced some challenges in taking over the game from its creator, and that it only found out that fetus was Monday's answer last week.

"Because of the current Wordle technology, it can be difficult to change words that have already been loaded into the game. When we discovered last week that this particular word would be featured today, we switched it for as many solvers as possible," the newspaper said.

The Times noted that "fetus" was still showing as the right answer for some people, and that was because those players did not refresh their browser before playing.

"You won't receive the outdated version if you have refreshed your browser window," it said. "But we know that some people won't do that and, as a result, will be asked to solve the outdated puzzle."

Insider had two people play the game on Monday morning. One player was shown that "fetus" was the correct answer, while the other was shown that the other answer was correct.

The Times statement described the event as "very unusual."

"We want to emphasize that this is a very unusual circumstance. When we acquired Wordle in January, it had been built for a relatively small group of users. We're now busy revamping Wordle's technology so that everyone always receives the same word," it said.

"We are committed to ensuring that tens of millions of people have a gratifying and consistent experience, every day."