CBC’s Carol Off interviewed a Brazilian abortion activist who is using the onset of the Zika virus to promote abortion in Brazil. You can listen to the interview here.
Some thoughts:
These are wanted children, presumably. In the contested science of psychological effects for women after abortion, there is an area of agreement and it’s this: aborting a wanted baby leaves women at greater risk for later problems.
Secondly, many women might be right to wonder why there isn’t an all out attack on fixing the virus, finding a cure, finding a vaccine and controlling the spread by controlling mosquitoes. Even the abortion activist alludes to this as a problem in the interview.
Finally, it’s only where you are not thinking of babies that abortion can be a solution. You’ll notice the interview starts with reference to the “fetus” and ends with reference to the “baby.”
Carol Off’s last question is about whether abortion is even an effective solution since microcephaly is only diagnosed later in pregnancy.
According to the CDC “Microcephaly is most easily diagnosed by ultrasound late in the 2nd trimester or early in the third trimester of pregnancy.”
I’m against abortion, so it’s pretty clear where I stand on abortion as a solution to anything. But even if you are not against abortion in principle, second or early third trimester means women have been pregnant for many weeks, are bonded with their babies–furthermore, their babies look like babies, very clearly.
So I believe that advocating for legal abortion in response to the Zika virus gets an epic fail on the feminist front regardless of whether you are against abortion or not.
by
Leave a Reply