In the shadow of Zika: a virus that is putting pressure on the Church over abortion and contraception

The spread of a hitherto relatively mild virus in Latin America and its possible link to foetal damage is putting pressure on the Church over abortion and contraception Experts at the World Health Organization are calling it a global health emergency while those at the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases say it is “an explosive pandemic of Zika virus infection”. Usually humans catch it from mosquitoes but on Tuesday a patient in Texas was reported to have been infected by sexual contact. Not since the Ebola outbreak in December 2013, which killed 11,000 people around the globe, has there been such fear about a virus. Now Zika is spreading fast across Latin America, and as well as the US cases have been reported this week in Australia and Irelan

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User Comments (1)

Comment by: Speighdd

Posted: 06/02/2016 01:17:09

At this sensitive time the Church in Brazil is faced with the choice between on the one hand risking unpopularity by publicly condemning the total destruction of unborn babies as a way of ending their disability, and on the other, discreetly avoiding public discussion about aiding the birth of severely disabled children, thereby risking Brazilian law being hijacked in the service of the creeping normalisation of abortion. A previously unknown situation like the Zika threat, is one in which the faithful are more likely to be lastingly deceived by the Church taking the second of these two options than by it taking the first, so the Church should speak out.