#504 Impact of Covid-19 March 27, 2020
Abortion As predicted, sidewalk advocates outside abortion facilities are reporting an upsurge in women entering. But there’s good news: Planned Parenthood, which owns over half of U.S. abortion centers, has made itself a little less available.
News reports and Planned Parenthood announce that 11 PP centers in Illinois will be temporarily closed for several weeks, “consolidating” into a list of six.
In New York, PP had an obscure notice saying 6 centers would be closing March 20 or 21. To show they weren’t just closed for the day, the listings for those centers have disappeared from PP’s New York list of centers. Along with 6 others. A total of 12 have disappeared, so a list of 57 has become 45, a 21% drop. There’s been no news coverage found by googling, nor any clear announcement from PP. Therefore, whether this is temporary or permanent, and what the reasons are, remain a mystery.
In total, there are 28 PP centers (out of 580) that PP lists as closed until further notice – the 11 in Illinois, 10 in California, and the rest scattered throughout the U.S. However, we haven’t been monitoring those, so for most part we don’t know the timing of when they closed.
Executions A UPI report of March 20 details Covid-19 Could Disrupt U.S. Executions for Months, “which one expert says could reduce the dwindling support for the death penalty.”
Euthanasia The reasoning of end-of-life “choice” is in some quarters being replaced by concern for human lives. For example, Dahlia Lithwick writes in Slate: “Republicans who once decried the Affordable Care Act as a harbinger of “death panels” are now toying with cutting out the middleman and sentencing the country’s oldest to death without bothering with any panels at all . . . cheerfully suggesting that a few dead elderly people would be a small price to pay to protect the U.S. economy in the coming weeks.” Revulsion for that prospect goes counter to pro-euthanasia arguments.
War On March 23, UN Secretary-General António Guterres issued an appeal urging “warring parties across the world to lay down their weapons in support of the bigger battle against COVID-19: the common enemy that is now threatening all of humankind.” The PBS NewsHour had a segment on the impact on populations in war zones.
Our Latest Blog Post Julia Smucker considers the question: Is Abortion Different from Other Violence? She discusses why abortion is often singled out among issues of killing.
Kathryn Jean Lopez Virus Putting Attention on Value of Life (published in various sources) March 21, 2020. I find myself somewhat stunned about a lot of things these days, and among them is the fact so many of us, regardless of our party affiliations, ideological loyalties or other convictions of a more enduring sort, are joined in common cause in defense of human life. And I’ve been watching New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who not only expanded abortion in my home state, but also once told pro-life New Yorkers that we are unwelcome here. In these days, though, he is rising to the occasion of protecting and defending human life. . . . I find myself praying not only for healing and an end to this pandemic, but that when we find ourselves on the other side of this, we might reconsider some of our debates, and find common cause on a whole lot more as people of good will. . . . Can we rethink things a bit? Can we see our common humanity?
Responses/News Tips/Questions to share are all welcome.
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