Brazil is considered to be one of the most pro-life countries in the world. Abortion is completely illegal there, unless the mother’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is a result of rape. This has been a thorn in the sides of abortion activists, so it’s no surprise that they’re jumping on the fear surrounding the Zika virus. For most people, the virus only causes mild symptoms, but in pregnant women, it can cause their babies to be born with microcephaly, a birth defect that causes babies to have developmental disabilities and small heads.
“Imagine you’re pregnant already, and then you discover you have this virus, and then you discover that this virus causes this condition in the fetus,” said Anu Kumar, executive vice president of the global abortion rights non-profit IPAS. “Then you’re faced with the decision of, what do you want to do with this?”
Kumar, speaking at the International Conference on Family Planning in Bali, Indonesia, said the Zika situation highlights the public health problems that severely restrictive abortion laws cause. An estimated 47,000 women a year die from unsafe abortion complications.
“That’s exactly why these laws should be liberalized,” she said, “because unsafe abortions lead to injury, lead to death, lead to women having unspeakable horror inflicted on them. And why, when we have the technology to do this safely?”
Got that? Having a baby born with a disability is an “unspeakable horror” and women should kill their babies to avoid having that “horror” inflicted upon them. It would be interesting to see how parents of children born with microcephaly would react to hearing their children being described as “unspeakable horrors.” (That’s certainly not how this family sees it.)
And Brazil isn’t the only country feeling the pressure. The Center for Reproductive Rights is also lobbying the El Salvadoran government to loosen their abortion laws, although so far, officials have not responded to the petition.
Here’s the problem, though: no one has the right to decide whose life is worth living and whose is not. Just because a baby may be born with a birth defect doesn’t mean that the baby should be handed a death sentence. Every life has value and dignity — something that abortion advocates, sadly, don’t understand. This is another situation where they show the mentality of “better dead than.” Better dead than poor. Better dead than disabled. Better dead than unloved. If life doesn’t hand you a perfect beginning, then you’re simply better off dead. After all, why put a baby through hardship? Why make parents feel even an iota of stress or fear or grief?
Abortion doesn’t make those things go away, though. Life is hard regardless of what kind of beginning someone might have. There is no escaping fear or grief or stress or pain. And we can never guarantee that someone will not become disabled or die early. So why should we deprive innocent preborn children of life? Because we think it will be too hard on us? Because some people think lives with disabilities aren’t worth living? Sorry, abortion activists, but you don’t get to make those decisions. Plain and simple: you don’t get to play God.
