The Washington Post sided with abortion activists this week as they push to legalize abortion in the midst of the Zika virus scare in South America.
Many believe the virus is linked to a huge increase in the number of babies being born with microcephaly, a neurological disorder where a baby’s head is significantly smaller and the brain is abnormally developed, according to the Mayo Clinic. The condition is not typically fatal, but it can cause health problems throughout the child’s life.
Abortion activists have been exploiting the health crisis by pushing for legalized abortion in South American countries, which tend to be strongly pro-life and Catholic. They claim pregnant women who contract Zika should be allowed to abort because their babies may be born with a brain disorder.
In a new piece published Monday, the newspaper blasted the Catholic Church and others who continue to vocally defend unborn babies from the new, eugenic-like push to abort them. The journalists dedicated most of their article to abortion activists’ arguments.
Breitbart writer Thomas D. Williams pointed out that the Washington Post writers did not explore the problems with abortion activists’ agenda, including the growing uncertainty about whether Zika and microcephaly really are linked. Williams wrote:
Recent reports suggest, on the contrary, that alleged connections between the Zika virus and microcephaly in Brazilian babies may be due more to hype and hysteria than serious science.
Though the Brazil Ministry of Health has registered an unusually high number of babies born with microcephaly, 96% of these cases occurred without the mothers having been infected with the Zika virus at all, which means that the cause must be sought elsewhere.
Keep up with the latest pro-life news and information on Twitter. Follow @LifeNewsHQ
The Post says that Zika cases have been reported in the four Latin American nations where abortion is illegal—Chile, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and El Salvador—but fails to mention that there has been no problem with microcephaly in these countries.
Zika has been around for decades, yet up to now has never been found to correlate to birth defects in children. Its effects are so mild and short-lived that 4 out of 5 people infected with the virus do not even realize they are sick. Symptoms include low-grade fever, maybe a rash, possible conjunctivitis (pink eye), and some joint pain.
Noting that “it is extremely difficult for doctors to detect” microcephaly until it is too late, the Post suggests that all women affected with Zika should be allowed to abort their babies, just in case the child might suffer from any defects, even if it is extremely improbable.
According to the Post article, Brazil abortion advocates “want women who have been diagnosed with Zika to be able to terminate a pregnancy on that basis alone.” The pro-abortion group Women on Web already is doing that by offering offering free, mail-order abortion drugs to pregnant women who think they may have Zika, according to the article.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in Brazil responded to the crisis last week, rejecting the idea that legalized abortion is a solution — even if there is a link between Zika and microcephaly.
“Nothing justifies an abortion,” said the Rev. Luciano Brito, spokesman for the archdiocese. “Just because a fetus has microcephaly won’t make us favorable [to abortion].”
Though the Post article does not mention them, families and individuals who have experiences with microcephaly also are responding to the crisis by reminding society that the lives of people with disabilities are valuable, too.
Texas mother Gabrielle Frohock recently told the BBC that finding out her daughter Laney had microcephaly was “not the end of the world.”
Frohock said she was devastated when doctors first told her that her baby had the brain disorder; but she quickly came to see her daughter’s life as “a gift.” She urged other families not to throw away the gift of a child’s life just because the child may have a disability.
Williams, too, blamed the Washington Post for allowing abortion activists to exploit people’s fears about the virus and microcephaly.
He wrote, “Instead of promoting research into remedies to treat or counteract the virus, the abortion industry has shamelessly played into people’s worst fears to push for abortion-on-demand in countries like El Salvador that currently restrict or prohibit abortion.”
The World Health Organization has declared the virus outbreak an international health emergency. No vaccine or cure has been developed yet.
