What lives in swampy water, leaves itchy red spots when it bites you, essentially invisible, weighs about 2.5 milligrams and buzzes at about 174Hz 3 times per second? You sure guessed it! It’s the pesky little mosquito. Summer is creeping up on us slowly but shortly, which means bad news for us, but good new for the Zika Virus.

The Zika Virus is spread through the aedes aegypti mosquito, and is more likely to spread through warm and humid nations just above and below the equator, for instance in Brazil.

While it seems that the Zika virus has erupted in Brazil, many avoid its potential in stirring up conflict beyond the clinical level. The Zika virus has done nothing but strike fear and panic in Brazil since its first appearance. The unfair rules placed on women put them at risk, with little support from higher authorities.

For anyone who is affected by the Zika virus, they may experience symptoms ranging from fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes. Effects are more extreme when the disease infects a pregnant woman. Pregnant women infected with the Zika Virus are at risk for giving birth to a diseased child. More than 4,000 babies in Brazil have been born with microcephaly. Infected mothers offspring are at a high risk for being affected with microcephaly, causing a stunt in the baby’s head growth, and also causing fatal brain damage. This crisis has led to the World Health Organization to declare the Zika Virus a worldwide public health emergency.

There are not many options that exist to aid the pregnant women who are infected with the Zika virus. The existing options she could choose between would be to have an abortion, or to just endure the burden of raising a child with a disease. Many women in Brazil are from low-income families who cannot afford contraceptives, and are now left with the cost of dealing with a baby with a disorder. However, the latter option is the only legal option these women can take.

Notwithstanding urgent requests from global leaders to loosen abortion penalties in Latin America due to the Zika Virus, officials in Brazil are moving in the other direction, and the wrong one too. In its place, conservatives in Brazil are working to increase penalties for women who have had an abortion. This intensely Catholic government would sentence women to nearly five years in jail if they abort the child with microcephaly.

“With the crisis that has hit our country, a feminist movement has tried to take advantage to change our abortion laws,’’ said Anderson Ferreira, a member of Brazil’s lower house from the Republic Party.

He also adds “this movement needs to be confronted. Everyone needs to realize the gravity of the crime that is abortion and that is not acceptable.”

This law was passed in 2012, to ensure that women are allowed to have contraceptives, and abort the baby when detected with the Zika Virus. However, Zika can usually only be detected in the third trimester of a pregnancy, and by then it is too late.

Officials in Columbia advised women to put off getting pregnant this year. In El Salvador, officials are telling women to put off getting pregnant until 2018. Many other Latin American countries are doing the same, where they are simply telling women to not get pregnant.
What about accidental pregnancies?

“The advice of some governments to women to delay getting pregnant, ignores the reality that many women and girls simply cannot exercise control over whether or when or under what circumstances they become pregnant, especially in an environment where sexual violence is so common,” said UN High Commissioner for Hunan Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein.

The pope even came out to speak about this issue. He suggested that women are now able to, and allowed to use contraceptives only to prevent the spread and contraction of the zika virus. However, for low-income families, contraceptives aren’t even prevalent.

When the pope was asked whether or not abortion or contraceptives would be a better choice, he states that contraceptives may be morally acceptable in fighting the Zika Virus, and abortion is a crime and an absolute evil.

Evil.

Women who are raped and did not want the baby, and are now stuck with a diseased baby and all she wants to do is abort it, is evil. But the rape was not?

A woman who will probably starve trying to pay medical bills, and wants to abort the baby to avoid the burden, is evil.

Women who are young, from remote or low income communities, and/or living in other vulnerable situations, disproportionately face multiple barriers when it comes to exercising meaningful decision-making power and control over their sexual and reproductive lives. In such context, a call for women to simple delay or avoid pregnancy is not only unrealistic but is also irresponsible and negligent.

Instead of putting laws on women and telling them to not get pregnant, we should start funding so we can help these women get what they need to live a happy and healthy life with their baby. If abortion is still going to be illegal, give these women all the resources and money they need to get check ups for the baby, and for themselves. We need to ensure universal access to a full range of high-quality, voluntary, and use-friendly contraceptive methods. We need to target both men and women in public health awareness campaigns. It takes two to get pregnant; it is not right to have the women carry the entire burden. We need to decriminalize abortion, and remove all legal and implementation barriers, so that we can expand and ensure access to save procedures for pregnancy termination. We need to support the women in Zika affected countries who decide to remain pregnant. This means we need to support their delivery, pre and post partum care and neo natal care services, as well as therapy and health and educational services.