Just as I expected, it did not take long for proabortion advocates to use the Zika virus to promote the legalization of abortion in countries where it is restricted, or limited, like El Salvador.

“When women are desperate… they will seek out their own solutions,” said Carmen Barroso, Western Hemisphere Director for the International Planned Parenthood Federation in a January 28th, New York Post article. “World Health Organization officials said Thursday the virus is “spreading explosively” and the Americas could see up to 4 million cases of Zika in the next year. And as it expands to countries where abortion is strictly limited or outlawed altogether, doctors and health advocates fear that many women could resort to back-alley procedures that imperil their health.”

Now, I am no doctor, and admittedly, it is distressing to hear about the possibility of infection and “abnormally small heads and a short life expectancy” for an unborn child, but the article also admits that the Zika virus does not affect all pregnant mothers, and the link to the birth defect is still unclear, stating it could be six to nine months before a link is definitively established or dismissed.

In the meantime, in what has become a familiar scenario, Planned Parenthood and other advocates of abortion are using the virus to expand the legalization of abortion, instilling fear in women who are pregnant and causing them to wonder if they should terminate their pregnancy.

Feeding on those fears, we are told once again, that the "concern" is for the “safety” of pregnant women who may choose to abort in a country where abortion is limited or illegal. I imagine they have been dreaming about a situation such as this for years to assist them in their quest.

What they fail to mention in any detail of course, are the same things often omitted in other adverse prenatal diagnosis. They fail to mention that very often, an adverse prenatal diagnosis is wrong, that killing your unborn child does not save it from anything, and that the parents who choose to abort out of fear will have to live with the fact that they participated in the death of their unborn child.

“While Zika’s exact link to the rare birth defect known as microcephaly is still unclear, warnings from El Salvador, at least six other countries, and health officials across the Americas are raising anxiety for millions of would-be and could-be mothers in affected areas," states the Washington Post.

Angelica Rivas of the Citizens Group for the Decriminalization of the Therapeutic, Ethic and Eugenesic Abortion (ACDATEE), a group that advocates for decriminalization of the procedure said, “What can be expected is an increase in the rates of illegal abortions, unsafe abortions, and a mental health issue for women.”

What Rivas fails to mention is that even legal abortion is often unsafe, and more and more women who have experienced abortion are coming forward to speak of the risks of abortion itself including physical and mental health issues.
As the dangers of increased terminations grow with the fear of this outbreak, women need to be

aware that abortion is not the solution for an adverse diagnosis. It does not make the fact of the pregnancy go away and the implications can live with you for the rest of your life. As one woman in our “Entering Canaan Ministry” said after an adverse diagnosis termination, “I desperately needed to feel 'norma' to make it all 'normal.' I would soon find out that no matter how I tried, it would never be normal. My baby was dead because of me… Looking back I can see what was missing from the conversation. They never mentioned anything remotely positive. Surely there was something they could have told us that wasn’t bleak and morbid. Like the fact that we could love our daughter no matter what her physical or mental condition. Of course, we knew we would love her, but whether we could love her wasn’t so clear. I can see that now."

As the panic and fear are sure to increase with the spread of Zika, I pray that those parents who are expecting get the support and help they need not to panic, and that they bring their babies to term trusting in God to provide for their needs and those of their unborn child.

As with the serpent, may Mary crush the head of this virus so that the real threat, the evil of abortion, will not spread in our world, but instead faith and trust in God will grow, and the peace of knowing you did not kill you own child will be yours, knowing you would love them no matter what.

For more information on abortion and adverse prenatal diagnosis, please click here.  There is hope and healing.