Coronavirus, Chaos and Compassion

If there’s one thing we’ve learned so far from our nation’s reaction to COVID-19, is that human life is worth protecting. I marvel at the extraordinary measures taken and money spent to keep people from harm, especially the most vulnerable, during this global coronavirus response. I’m amazed at all of the rhetoric about caring for people and keeping one another safe. Of course, I fully agree with the desire to protect human life and the self-sacrifice required to do that. Although, that so-called “self-sacrifice” is now government mandated.

We’re told to fear. We’re told by medical experts and mainstream media that we’re all in danger, and nothing will ever be the same again.

We’re also told that the world will end in about 11 more years due to the existential threat of “climate change” that was to be, until the coronavirus, the leading threat to humanity. Many medical “experts” can’t even get the basics of Life right. Look at the American Medical Association and its extremist abortion activism. Look at the pro-abortion American Academy of Pediatrics which denies the basic biological facts of binary gender. 

I’m a firm believer in trust, if verified.

Politicians and activists keep demanding we keep this apolitical while making it insanely political. Just as the Democrats tried to force funding for Planned Parenthood with the $1.9 billion Zika Virus funding, Speaker Pelosi recently tried to circumvent the pro-life Hyde Amendment with coronavirus funding. #TrumpPandemic is, of course, trending on Twitter (the vast wasteland of what could’ve been a platform for free speech). Our nation’s great sage, Alyssa Milano, wonders if President Trump’s admittedly garbled and contradictory responses to the virus outbreak are “an impeachable offense”. The New York Times even declared: “Let’s Call it the TrumpVirus” last month. News pundits and political leaders on the right, like Republican Governor Mike DeWine, also went from initially being dismissive to fanning the flames of frenzy. 

Remember H1N1 and how President Obama waited six long months to move on that novel virus after it had already killed 1,000 Americans? From April 2009 to April 2010, 12,469 people died in the United States from H1N1 or the “swine flu”; 61 million were infected. The Obama administration took no drastic measures. Wear a mask if you’re traveling. Wash your hands. Don’t worry, be hygienic. Yet, no one calls it ObamaFlu. 

We the Sheeple have allowed ourselves to be whipped up into a panic over the coronavirus. As a Christian, I’m called to not have a Spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. In a day and age where everything is politicized, we can’t allow ourselves to be so easily manipulated by those who have no love for the truth. The duplicitous rhetoric we hear about human worth cannot distract us from wanting to know and understand what is really going on.

Panic is always dependence on the wrong source.

On the Radiance Foundation’s social media outlets, we’re constantly being challenged with the words “Well, if you’re really pro-life, you would want to do whatever is necessary to save other lives from the coronavirus.” First of all, “pro-life” is a term diluted to the point of near meaninglessness by those who aren’t actually pro-life. As an actual pro-lifer and a factivist, I want to bring clarity and context to issues. According to Italy’s Higher Institute of Health, the average age of those who die from the coronavirus is 80 years. Their socialized healthcare system is not comparable to ours, which is why an extensive study rated it 45 out of 100 for a “well-developed public health system” versus America’s rating of 70.1 out of 100. According to the CDC, 97 precious lives have been lost (as of 03/19/20) to COVID-19. There have been 9,045 confirmed infections in the United States since January. Since October, however, between 22,000 and 55,000 Americans have lost their lives to another pandemic—the flu. Why aren’t people challenging everyone to be so “pro-life” over these tragic losses of life?

More than 32,000 people are killed in automobile accidents in the U.S. every year, with another 2 million who suffer injuries. Does the government ban use of all cars? This is the equivalent of the coronavirus response.

Every time I’ve compared the coronavirus to flu statistics, I’m told there’s “no comparison” by those who then compare COVID-19 to the 1918 Spanish Flu! (Never mind an estimated 50 million people died from that flu pandemic.) Aren’t we better equipped to handle pandemics in 2020 than we were back in 1918? 

I will say, though, that our nation’s response to this pandemic has shredded the Left’s favorite mantra, “My Body! My Choice!”. These same activists overwhelmingly, now, support the government’s total control over what we do and where we go with our bodies as they insist these measures are necessary to save other human lives. Well, Amen! Who would’ve thought the deception and selfishness of bodily autonomy would be exposed by a virus? 

While the rest of the world is taking unprecedented actions to save vulnerable human lives the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) wants abortionists to keep on killing. ACOG just declared that abortion is “essential” healthcare, not an elective procedure that is medically unneccessary. This is yet, another example, of fake health coming from “medical professionals.”

Imagine, for a moment, if the Church took a coronavirus approach to protecting the most vulnerable from the completely avoidable pandemic of abortion that kills over 40,000,000 truly defenseless human beings every year around the world–human beings who are sheltered in what should be the safest place on earth. That’s over 80x the median estimate of annual deaths–500,000–from all strains of flu worldwide. Another way to see this devastation…there are an estimated 110,000+ cases of lives needlessly destroyed by the plague of abortion every…single…day. Imagine if the government felt what Martin Luther King Jr. called the “fierce urgency of now” to end the spread of violence against those completely powerless to stop it.

It shouldn’t take a global pandemic and panic to value every human life. When the coronavirus fades like the H1N1 and Zika scares, we’re still in a crisis of inaction. We need to ask ourselves: Are we more motivated by doomsday fear than by our daily faith to care for the least of these?