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By Joseph Meaney, Crisis Magazine, May 15, 2020

Joseph Meaney is president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

Joseph MeaneyGreat hopes and boundless resources are being poured into global efforts to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. This is a unique moment of unity and solidarity when humanity has mobilized to save lives. Billions of people are making sacrifices like staying home and shutting down events and businesses to keep others safe. This moment is particularly striking because, for the vast majority who become ill, Covid is not a deadly disease but only a mild to moderately severe one. As I have stated before, however, the ethics of a lock-down only work so long as the consequences of the cure are less severe than the dangers the pandemic itself poses to society.

At the same time, old partisan or ideological divisions have raised their ugly heads. Throughout the United States, elective surgeries were prohibited in order to focus health care resources on the response to the pandemic. Nonetheless, special exceptions, usually issued through the executive action of state governors, have allowed abortion on demand to continue in many states, while almost all other elective surgeries are banned. In states where abortions were stopped along with other elective surgeries, Planned Parenthood and other groups went to court and sometimes successfully challenged the orders to cease aborting. This reminds us that even a grave common threat will not unite a morally divided people for long.  …

Read more here:  crisismagazine.com/2020/will-the-cure-be-worse-than-the-disease