The emails arrive at an accelerating pace. Once sporadic, they now come in an incessant stream of 40, 45 or 50 per day.
Most are in Spanish or Portuguese. Others are in broken English.
All of them express the same sentiment, the same fear, the same desperate plea.
“Help!” one email begins. “Zika in Venezuela. I need abortion!”
The emails are from mothers in Latin America who are scared of giving birth to children with microcephaly, the mysterious condition marked by an undersized head and brain damage that doctors have linked to the mosquito-born Zika virus.
Some of the women say they have already tested positive for the virus. Others say they only fear they have contracted the disease and that their child will be born disabled.
All of them are asking for something that is simple yet elusive — and generally illegal — in this part of the world: abortion pills.
In more than a thousand emails to Women on Web, a Canada-based group that provides advice and medication for women wanting an abortion in countries where it is banned, the women beg for the pills that are banned by law in their respective countries of Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru or El Salvador.
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| Leticia de Araujo (L) holding her daughter, one-month-old Manuelly Araujo da Cruz, who was born with microcephaly after being exposed to the zika virus during her mother’s pregnancy, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 11 February 2016. (EPA/ANTONIO LACERDA) |
Babies with the brain disorder microcephaly deserve the same right to life as everyone else, Catholic authorities told South American countries this week as they work to curb the spread of the Zika virus.It hasn't changed their position on birth control either, in case you were wondering. And yes, the American "pro-life" movement is right there with them, spewing their usual noxious lies for cheap political purposes:
The mosquito-borne virus, a growing concern in South America, is potentially causing brain disorders such as microcephaly in unborn babies whose mothers are infected. Microcephaly is 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 baby’s life.
Several South American countries report that the number of babies born with the disorder has been increasing astronomically with the spread of the virus, though the link has not been confirmed. “Between October 2015 and January this year medics in [Brazil] have registered almost 4,000 cases of microcephaly in newborns, compared to 163 in a normal year,” according to The Pool.
Abortion activists are using the health crisis to push for legalized abortion in pro-life South American countries; but Catholic leaders responded to the push this week, contending that babies with microcephaly also deserve a right to life.
“Nothing justifies an abortion,” said the Rev. Luciano Brito, spokesman for the Catholic Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in Brazil. “Just because a fetus has microcephaly won’t make us favorable [to abortion].”
The abortion group’s actions are extremely troubling for multiple reasons. One of the problems with Zika is that it is difficult to diagnose. Health authorities say people who are infected do not necessarily show symptoms of the virus; and when they do, their symptoms can look like other illnesses. Similarly, conditions like microcephaly often are not diagnosed until women are 20 weeks pregnant or later. By offering abortions up to nine weeks, the Women on Waves group fails to mention that there is very little way of knowing at that point if the unborn baby or mother really are infected. Women could very likely be aborting healthy unborn babies and putting their own lives at risk. It also should be noted that no matter whether an unborn baby is healthy or sick, the baby deserves a right to life.
Another problem is with the drug itself. Chemical abortions can be deadly to the woman as well as her unborn child. Without a doctor’s visit or medical supervision (neither of which Women on Waves appears to be providing with the free, mail-order abortion drugs), more lives could be in jeopardy. Although Women on Waves says the abortion pill is safe, evidence from the United States indicates that’s not the case. In America, where emergency medical care often is readily available, the Food and Drug Administration documented at least 14 women’s deaths and 2,207 injuries from abortion drugs in the past 12 years, LifeNews previously reported.