Ethics Professor: Call for Zika Abortions the New Eugenics Movement

Zika Baby AP
Dr. Susan Berry

A Fordham University theological and social ethics professor writes that the radical left could well be using an outbreak of the Zika virus to impose its eugenicist impulses on countries that prohibit abortion.

Charles C. Camosy writes in the Los Angeles Times that the “eugenic impulse” is “so deeply embedded in U.S. culture that we don’t even recognize it.”

By way of example, he observes that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger “insisted that the imbalance between ‘the birthrate of the unfit and fit’ was ‘the greatest present menace to civilization.’” Sanger, of course, believed the black race was “unfit” and needed to be “eliminated,” and the organization she spawned is the nation’s largest provider of abortions — and taxpayer-funded to boot.

"Abortions are illegal in El Salvador, and birth control is hard to come by . . . the same government that denies women…

Posted by Planned Parenthood on Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Camosy finds it “remarkable” that the radical left’s response is to urge abortion for a virus for which there has been as yet no scientific link to microcephaly in infants.

He observes that the World Health Organization (WHO) decided Zika was a global emergency and that the disease was linked to microcephaly – even though a proven link had not been established.

Camosy notes the outcome of WHO’s declaration:

[T]he Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, which actively promotes the view that “access to abortion is a matter of human rights,” was putting pressure on countries in Central and South America to change laws that protect prenatal children from violence.

Other abortion rights activists seized on this new moment of opportunism. The blog ThinkProgress described it as “The Zika Virus’ Unlikely Silver Lining.” Slate’s feminist XXFactor blog sounded hopeful that Zika would be Latin America’s “rubella moment” — recalling that, in the 1950s, rubella’s association with birth defects began to make otherwise illegal abortion palatable in America. Amnesty International talked of the “devastating consequences” of antiabortion laws. Planned Parenthood’s international arm exploited the news to develop a special Zika virus fundraising campaign.

Even if a definitive link between Zika and birth defects is determined, Camosy asserts, “Abortion is a crude response to the possibility of microcephaly.” He notes the test for the presence of microcephaly is an ultrasound that may not pick up evidence of the disorder until the third trimester of pregnancy.

“That’s well after the baby can feel pain and live outside the womb, and past the point when a majority of those who identify as pro-choice are willing to accept abortions,” he explains.

Nevertheless, the notion that less than “normal” babies should not be allowed to survive is apparently commonplace. Camosy cites New York University bioethics program head Arthur Caplan, who notes, “[M]ore than 85% of parents who learn through prenatal testing that a fetus has Down syndrome terminate the pregnancy.”

“This despite studies that find children with Down are actually happier than those who are ‘normal’ and that families with such children are also disproportionately happy,” writes Camosy. “These facts, however, are not always shared with patients when physicians describe the possibility of having a child with Down syndrome.”

Citing Pope Francis’s persistent criticism of the contemporary “throwaway culture” of discarding the vulnerable, Camosy suggests it is time to organize “resistance to our impulse toward eugenics.”

Indeed, the use of the Zika virus to force legalization of abortion in countries that prohibit it is consistent with the same radical left’s refusal to consider what might be the most sensible remedy to eliminate the source of the problem, i.e., the mosquitos that carry the virus.

Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, tells Breitbart News that lifting the ban on DDT could wipe out the Zika virus.

“DDT was the most effective public health weapon of all time,” she explains, adding:

The ban on DDT was basically the decision of one man, William Ruckelshaus [the first head of the EPA], going against a mountain of evidence on safety and enormous health benefits. It was said that, “If they can ban DDT, they can ban anything.” And that’s how the EPA power grab started. Millions of African babies have died and are still dying of malaria because if it.

“Substitute pesticides are far more toxic and expensive,” Orient adds. “People are advised to use insect repellents such as DEET — which is absorbed through the skin, and safety in pregnancy is not established.”

Pioneer Energy president Dr. Robert Zubrin recently echoed the same idea at National Review: “The most effective pesticide is DDT. If the Zika catastrophe is to be prevented in time, we need to use it.”

Zubrin asserts that environmentalists such as Rachel Carson, author of the 1962 book Silent Spring, propagated the notion that DDT was harmful to bird populations.

“This was false,” he writes. “In fact, by eliminating their insect parasites and infection agents, DDT was helping bird numbers to grow significantly.”

Nevertheless, radical environmentalists launched an aggressive “massive propaganda campaign” that would ultimately ban the use of DDT.

“The rush to advocate for abortion as a response to the Zika virus is grounded in ignorance and expedience,” writes Camosy. “If these organizations were actually interested in helping people with Zika — rather than exploiting the outbreak for a broader agenda — they would have held their fire until we know more.”

It is unlikely, however, the radical left pro-abortion advocates would “hold their fire” until more scientific knowledge is available, since they even now refuse to acknowledge the “science” of the ultrasound. Organizations like Planned Parenthood and NARAL actively seek to undermine laws that would allow expectant mothers full information through viewing their babies’ ultrasounds prior to making the decision to abort.

The same organizations celebrate Black History Month – all the while 40 percent of pregnancies among black women end in abortion, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In fact, in New York City – home of the headquarters of Planned Parenthood – more black babies are aborted than are born. Yet, these abortion giants deny they are targeting black communities.

“Instead of arrogantly insisting that developing nations must change their laws to suit someone else’s ideology, abortion proponents and the media would be better served by taking a critical look at the dark tendency here and elsewhere to turn to eugenics as a solution to a problem like Zika,” Camosy asserts.

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