OPINION:
“We hopefully, as human beings, believe that all human lives are precious.” This is what Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told CNN was the premise of his decision to lock down the city on March 19. Out of an abundance of caution, I have been sheltering in place in my L.A. apartment with my husband and newborn son since several days before that order was issued.
Because COVID-19 threatens every city from Los Angeles to New York, leaders like Mr. Garcetti are ordering that all non-essential health care procedures be halted. This is to preserve protective equipment, such as masks and gloves, for the health care workers testing for and treating COVID-19. These orders also keep more of the general population home, slowing the spread of COVID-19.
But the abortion industry is carrying on business as usual. Almost as soon as the crisis began, groups like Planned Parenthood launched an intense abortion-marketing campaign and made it clear that they would continue business as usual. Planned Parenthood has outrageously claimed that abortion is “essential” health care and does not fall into the category of procedures halted by the states. In Ohio, Planned Parenthood has even said that it will continue carrying out abortions despite a statewide order that abortions be stopped or slowed during the crisis.
This means that while Americans are barred from undergoing surgeries that they need and attending things like important prenatal appointments for the sake of those most vulnerable to COVID-19, abortion businesses are recklessly disregarding human lives to put their profit above the well-being of Americans.
What could this mean for the communities in which the abortion industry operates unchecked? First, it could imperil critically low blood-bank supplies. Surgical and chemical abortions both carry the risk of hemorrhage — a complication that can require a blood transfusion. A complication that could, can and should be completely avoided by halting abortions. Second, it could mean that gloves, gowns, masks and tubing that are crucial to protecting health care workers and preventing the spread of COVID-19 will be depleted by abortionists. who should be using their skills and equipment to combat COVID-19.
Instead, the abortion industry’s greed begets a total lack of regard for public health. Medical professionals are tasked with healing — not killing. And while many doctors today do not take the Hippocratic Oath as it was originally worded, the global deployment of health care workers to save vulnerable people infected with COVID-19 is a clear reminder that the world’s expectation of health care professionals remains the same. They are expected to “do no harm.”
Abortion is the direct and intentional killing of a human being before his or her birth. It is an unspeakably violent and heartless act committed on the youngest, most vulnerable members of our human family. Abortion, therefore, is not health care, and abortion is certainly not “essential” in any context.
And Mayor Garcetti isn’t the only government leader who’s expressed concern for the preservation of human life. Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, stated: “I want to be able to say to the people of New York — I did everything we could do. And if everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.”
Yet, these men lead in areas of the country with some of the highest death tolls from abortion — an act that could be mitigated with a single word or signature from them. The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute reports that, in 2017, 132,680 California children were killed by abortion, and that number was 105,380 in New York the same year. That means nearly a quarter-million children were violently killed in just two states — and that every single one of these deaths was preventable. Every single one of those children’s lives was protectable.
This nation is one that cherishes life. It has demonstrated this affection for human life in virtually every government order and action aimed at curbing and treating COVID-19. It is time to recognize that the human decency and moral conscience that drives us to rescue and protect the most vulnerable must also drive us to demand the closure of abortion facilities across the nation.
Abortion facilities should not operate now, and they should not reopen after this national emergency subsides, because Mr. Cuomo was right: “If everything we do saves just one life,” it is worth it. And just as every single human being suffering from COVID-19 is worth every effort to rescue, so is every single one of the 862,320 children who dies annually and unnecessarily at the hands of American abortion facilities. Los Angeles is better than that, and our nation is better than that.
• Lila Rose lives in Los Angeles and is the founder and president of Live Action, a national pro-life nonprofit organization dedicated to ending abortion. Follow her on Twitter.
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