This week I drove by my local abortion clinic. The scene was familiar enough: anti-choicers screaming at families, holding up misleading signs, and rushing at women as they walked toward the clinic.
None of them were wearing masks. It seems their concern for the “babies” they claim to want to save is limited only to preventing women from having abortions. It does not include protecting a woman and her fetus should she choose to carry the baby to term.
COVID presents a unique risk to pregnant people, their unborn fetuses, and newborns. Anyone who refuses to wear a mask does not care about them, and certainly cannot claim to be pro-life.
How COVID Attacks the Placenta
We now know that COVID directly attacks the placenta, with uncertain effects on a developing baby. A newly published study compared 77 birthing people with COVID-19 to 56 without the virus. All of the participants delivered their babies at full term (later than 37 weeks). None had medical or obstetric complications.
Eighty-seven percent of women diagnosed with COVID-19 were asymptomatic. Yet in the COVID-19 group, including among asymptomatic women, the placenta was significantly more likely to show signs of damage.
About a third (32.5 percent) of women with COVID had fetal vascular malperfusion, indicating lesions or other abnormalities in the placenta and its blood vessels. Just 3.6 percent in the non-COVID group had this abnormality.
An additional 20.8 percent in the COVID group had villitis, which means that there was inflammation of the chorionic villi, compared to 7.1 percent in the non-COVID group.
This, the study’s authors argue, suggests that COVID attacks the placenta. Because the study was small, the potential effects of this attack are not clear; a larger sample size might produce more pregnancy anomalies, or more babies with birth defects. All of the babies appeared normal at birth. This is a positive initial sign, but not all serious health issues are apparent at birth. Moreover, it is possible that COVID may have different and more serious effects earlier in pregnancy.
Some data suggests COVID may increase the risk of preterm delivery, and earlier data on SARS (which is closely related to COVID) found an increased risk of miscarriage.
The Stunning Effects of COVID on Babies
Early in the pandemic, COVID deniers and people desperate for their children to remain in school popularized the idea that COVID is harmless to children. It is true that children are less likely to be hospitalized and die, but they are far from immune. They also play a key role in spreading the virus, causing some researchers to refer to them as superspreaders.
This superspreading capacity of children can be deadly for their younger siblings. Infants under 12 months do not enjoy the same reduced risk of severe illness as older children. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data on infants with COVID shows that 62 percent end up in the hospital. Their hospitalization rate is higher than any other age group, and higher than that of people with pre-existing conditions.
For newborns, more than any other group, COVID-19 is an existential threat. If you’re protesting outside of an abortion clinic—many of which also provide pregnancy health services--without a mask, it’s not because you care about children.
An American now dies every 35 seconds from COVID. The #alllivesmatter crowd doesn’t care. Hundreds of children have died of the disease, and hundreds more have been hospitalized or disabled. Self-styled pro-lifers aggressively oppose any measure that could save these children, and continue to refuse to wear masks. Their Trump death cult will always Trump anything else.
For people who actually care about human life and who want to see the suffering end, the Senate race here in my home state of Georgia is critical. I’ve written previously about what you can do to help. And if you live in Georgia, please vote and make sure everyone you know has a voting plan.
The COVID crisis has shown, to horrifying effect, how little Republicans value human life. It’s time we start calling them the pro-death party, and make them pay by voting them out.