Abortion Industry's Response to COVID-19: "Business as Usual"
In response to the COVID-19 virus pandemic, hospitals and other primary care facilities are rightly focused on this medical emergency. Federal and state governments have called for all elective surgeries to be rescheduled in order to ensure care for those in immediate need and to free up vital resources to treat those impacted by COVID-19.
The abortion industry is ignoring this call and instead is working to ensure there is no interruption in the destruction of unborn babies.
“The vast majority of abortions are elective procedures and despite calls on the national, state, and local level for all elective procedures to be postponed, abortion clinics are conducting business as usual,” stated Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “As hospitals struggle to provide care, find supplies to protect doctors, nurses, patients, and other hospital personnel, abortion clinics are endangering staff and patients in those same communities.”
At least two states are directly addressing the abortion industry’s callousness. The Ohio Attorney General David Yost issued the following statement to abortion clinics continuing to operate in Ohio:
You and your facility are ordered to immediately stop performing non-essential and elective surgical abortions. Non-essential surgical abortions are those that can be delayed without undue risk to the current or future health of a patient.
In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott released an executive order stating,
[A]ll licensed health care professionals and all licensed health care facilities shall postpone all surgeries and procedures that are not immediately medically necessary to correct a serious medical condition of, or to preserve the life of, a patient who without immediate performance of the surgery or procedure would be at risk for serious adverse medical consequences or death, as determined by the patient’s physician; PROVIDED, however, that this prohibition shall not apply to any procedure that, if performed in accordance with the commonly accepted standard of clinical practice, would not deplete the hospital capacity or the personal protective equipment needed to cope with the COVID-19 disaster.
“Abortion clinics conducting business as usual in the presence of a life-threatening disease show just how callous pro-abortion groups and abortionists are to protecting life at any stage,” said Tobias. “We call on groups like Planned Parenthood to cease operating and donate any medical supplies to local hospitals in need.”
The letter from David Yost, J.D., Ohio’s attorney general can be found here.
The executive order from Greg Abbott, J.D., governor of Texas can be found here.