For decades, abortion activists have insisted that abortions are a woman’s “choice.”
Now, as states shut down non-essential medical care to focus on the coronavirus pandemic, pro-abortion radicals are shifting their rhetoric to claim that killing unborn babies is “essential” health care.
“Every abortion is a medically essential abortion,” feminist writer Jennifer Wright claimed at Refinery 29 this week.
She criticized states like Texas, Maryland, Mississippi, Louisiana and Ohio for ordering abortion facilities to close, along with a long list of non-essential medical providers.
“Republicans are using this pandemic as an excuse to, among other things, bar women from reproductive choice,” Wright argued. “As medical facilities in many states cease performing what are termed inessential procedures … in order to conserve supplies, some members of the GOP are attempting to exploit the situation and effectively ban abortion.”
She slammed these shutdowns as proof of “inherent misogyny,” claiming that if Republican lawmakers were “actually pro-life, they’d be concerned about the fact that women keep dying as a result of pregnancy — but then, I suppose fetuses don’t use such shrill unpleasant voices as they demand their basic rights to healthcare.”
Maternal mortality is a real problem, and pro-life leaders do a lot to help pregnant and parenting mothers access the support they need. But the problem does not justify the killing of unborn babies in abortions.
Women do not need to abort their unborn babies to be healthy. To prevent maternal mortality, they need access to better health care, not abortions. Abortions kill unborn babies’ lives and put mothers at risk. Common abortion complications include infections, blood clots, hemorrhaging and an incomplete abortion where parts of the baby remain inside the mother’s womb. Abortion risks include future preterm births, breast cancer, suicide, anxiety/depression, and death. And it simply is not true that abortions are safer than childbirth.
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Though Wright claimed abortions “often” save women’s lives, she did not provide any evidence of it. In reality, studies indicate that almost all abortions are purely elective. According to one study, approximately 93 percent of abortions are done for “social reasons,” and not because of rape, incest or risks to the mother’s health.
Mothers who cannot get abortions are not unhealthy as a result. They become mothers of newborn babies. Wright basically admitted that the big problem with banning abortions is a live baby.
She wrote:
As Bonyen Lee-Gilmore, a director at Planned Parenthood notes, “Obviously, abortion is an essential service because it is time sensitive in nature.”
Right. If you do not get an abortion, you may well get a baby. Apparently childbirth is not something that people are worried about overwhelming hospitals, in spite of the fact that 21 percent of births in the U.S. are now C-sections, a surgical procedure. Apparently medical professionals being overwhelmed is fine, as long as they’re engaging in childbirth and not abortion. …
If that doesn’t seem like something that’s important to focus on right now — well, I’d say that forcing women to bring unwanted children into the world in a time when they already have plenty of causes for stress and despair seems downright inhumane. To say that it’s not essential is to say that women’s wellbeing is inessential.
First, Wright’s claim about overwhelming hospitals is ridiculous. The purpose of the state mandates is to not overwhelm hospitals now in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. In six to nine months when many of these babies will be born, the outbreak should be over. What’s more, it is perfectly legitimate to prioritize childbirth over abortion. Childbirth is about helping mothers and babies live, while the purpose of an abortion is to kill an unborn child.
Second, Wright’s wantedness argument is old and fatally flawed. Some children are born into difficult circumstances, some face them later in life, and others while they are still in the womb. None of these struggles justify killing a child, born or unborn. A child’s value is not based on how wanted they are or how difficult their life may be. Every human life is valuable because they are human.
Third, Wright claimed women need abortions because of the emotional and financial burden that having an unwanted child could place on them. She claimed women who are stuck in abusive situations also many need abortions. But she is applying the wrong solution to these problems. Women in difficult situations deserve material and emotional support that helps fix the problem, and the problem isn’t the unborn baby. Abortion facilities do not solve problems. They merely take women’s money, kill their unborn babies and then leave them to deal with their struggles alone.
Killing human beings is not essential. It’s not a solution to society’s problems. In America right now, state leaders are saving lives by putting a temporary halt to abortions. Their orders protect both the born and unborn by stopping abortion facilities from killing unborn babies and harming mothers in unnecessary procedures. In doing so, they also are conserving much-needed medical supplies for those who really need them.
It’s what leaders should be doing – prioritizing life over death.
