Letter to the editor: Kansas doesn’t need more abortions during coronavirus pandemic

Not necessary

Medical personnel are working tirelessly to save lives during this pandemic and the public is being encouraged to stay hopeful, courageous and supportive of the community and its most vulnerable members.

In stark contrast, the abortion industry continues to stoke the insecurities of pregnant women in crisis situations and paints their futures as uncertain, hopeless and solvable by the violence of abortion.

Any new, self-serving definition of elective abortion as “essential” health care, however, is rebutted by the more than 30,000 physician members of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the American College of Pediatricians, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations and the Catholic Medical Association.

The groups’ recent joint statement asserts: “Currently, across the United States, services that do constitute essential health care for women, including routine Pap smears, mammograms and pelvic exams, are being postponed to reduce everyone’s risk of exposure to COVID-19 and to conserve scarce medical resources. Continuing to perform elective abortions during a pandemic is medically irresponsible.”

The irony is clear: While our quarantined nation mourns thousands of COVID-19 deaths, Kansas abortion businesses are performing what may be record numbers of abortions and encouraging women to travel here from out of state for abortions.

The abortion industry is guilty of trying to take advantage of the pandemic. In a recent legal plea to the Kansas Court of Appeals, it sought permission to drop physician protocols for chemical abortion, claiming the pandemic necessitated it.

Thankfully, the court rejected the ploy.

- Jeanne Gawdun, director of government relations, Kansans for Life, Topeka