Some U.S. national pro-life groups are denouncing the left’s promotion of abortion as a solution to the Zika virus pandemic that is spreading throughout the Americas.
“It is shameful that the abortion industry is trying to capitalize on a health crisis by pushing abortion rather than addressing the actual cause of a real problem,” said Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest in a statement to Breitbart News.
Yoest continued:
It’s very important for international officials and national leaders to address the mosquito infestation that is at the heart of the health crisis, to protect mothers and their unborn children, rather than arguing that women should be forced to give up their dreams of a family or end the lives of beloved children who have been left vulnerable in a crisis.
As Breitbart News reported January 29, Planned Parenthood has taken advantage of fears surrounding the Zika crisis in Brazil to promote the expansion of unrestricted abortion throughout Latin America. The abortion business has especially targeted those Latin American countries with restrictive abortion laws, such as El Salvador, in hopes of using the crisis to ease existing abortion legislation.
As Breitbart News also previously reported, sociologist Jacqueline Pitanguy echoed the perspective associated with United Nations groups – which view abortion as a human right – when she wrote in an editorial, “It is essential to recognize that women and men have the right to make decisions and existential options and one of the most important choices in the life of a woman is to have children or not.”
Similarly, in an editorial published by online news outlet El Faro, which covers Latin America, Laura Aguirre, a sociology doctoral student at the Institute of Latin American Studies at the Free University of Berlin, condemned the suggestion by the government of El Salvador that women abstain from getting pregnant until 2017. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she says in her headline, of the suggesting that avoiding pregnancy will limit damage to an unborn child. Aguirre suggests instead that women in El Salvador be granted access to abortion instead.
Zika was first discovered in 1947 in an ape. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the first human case of the virus was recorded in 1968. Though ignored for many years, its possible ties to microcephaly – a birth defect that causes babies to be born with smaller heads than normal and to often have developmental problems – have now captured the attention of world health officials.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned pregnant American women and females of childbearing age who may become pregnant against traveling to most countries in the Americas where the Zika virus has spread.
On Tuesday, the Israeli Health Ministry also advised women visiting countries afflicted with the Zika virus to refrain from becoming pregnant while there and until they are out of those countries for a four-week period.
Canada has reported four Zika cases in travelers to Latin America. In the United States, California health officials say six people who were infected with the virus abroad have been diagnosed since 2013.
Dallas County, Texas health officials have also confirmed its first sexually transmitted case of the Zika virus.
“Now that we know Zika virus can be transmitted through sex, this increases our awareness campaign in educating the public about protecting themselves and others,” said Zachary Thompson, Dallas County Health and Human Services (DCHHS) director. “Next to abstinence, condoms are the best prevention method against any sexually-transmitted infections.”
Chuck Donovan, president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) – the research arm of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List – tells Breitbart News the Zika pandemic and its use by the left to promote abortion is an urgent topic.
“The Charlotte Lozier Institute joins public health officials in expressing great concern over the spread of the Zika virus,” Donovan said in a statement to Breitbart News. “We support the expansion of public health measures to check and ultimately eradicate this mosquito-borne disease and to identify and assist potentially infected individuals.”
“As we monitor scientific and policy developments regarding this new threat, we must hold in mind the overarching responsibility of medicine to respect the sanctity of every human life, including the vulnerable unborn,” he added.