The way forward as the Covid-19 pandemic appears to be ending

THE WAY FORWARD

as the Covid-19 pandemic appears to be ending

by JOHN SMEATON

The political and health establishment is beginning to herald the end of the worst of the Coronavirus: the worst, that is, if you happen to have had the privilege of being born already.

An article in a major UK national newspaper The Daily Telegraph (2 February 2022) concluded that “Britain is largely out of the coronavirus woods”, whilst the World Health Organization was urging countries to “lift or ease international traffic bans”.

The suffering caused by Covid-19 will never be fully quantified and cannot be measured only by the number of Covid cases and deaths; for example, the pressure which has been brought to bear on the health services, combined with the public’s hesitation in seeking healthcare which, in its turn, has led to an increase in serious physical and psychological illness, as well as deaths, including suicides. The economic impact of Covid on individuals and businesses has had a similar impact on the health and welfare of countless people worldwide.

However, there is another evil of the pandemic which threatens to prolong the death and suffering for generations to come: unscrupulous politicians in many parts of the world have exploited the fear and confusion created by the pandemic to introduce sweeping changes and facilitate an increase in home abortions.

In the USA, for example, in December 2021, the federal government approved access to abortion pills by mail, on a permanent basis, following temporary approval in April 2021.

The New York Times reports:

“The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) action means that medical abortion, an increasingly common method authorised in the United States for pregnancies up to 10 weeks’ gestation, will become more available to women who find it difficult to travel to an abortion provider or prefer to terminate a pregnancy in their homes.”

In the UK, the government states that, from April 2020, it introduced “a temporary approval … enabling women and girls to take both pills for early medical abortion (EMA) up to 10 weeks (9 weeks and 6 days) gestation in their own homes, following a telephone or e-consultation with a clinician, without the need to first attend a hospital or clinic”.1 They did this, the Government says, “in order to reduce the transmission of Covid-19” for the duration of the pandemic.

The UK’s government policy has resulted in a major increase in the killing of unborn children. According to the Department of Health and Social Care:

“Between January and June 2020, there were 109,836 abortions performed on residents of England and Wales. This compares with 105,540 over the same period in 2019.”2

“There is another evil of the pandemic which threatens to prolong the death and suffering for generations to come: unscrupulous politicians in many parts of the world have exploited the fear and confusion created by the pandemic to facilitate an increase in home abortions.”

Meanwhile, in Europe, according to the British Medical Journal:

“Expansions to medical abortion care during COVID-19 were noted in 13 countries/ regions surveyed; namely Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Portugal, Switzerland, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, six of which involved official policy amendments. These changes … were largely considered temporary, and pertained mostly to the expansion of home-based medical abortion and modes of dispensing mifepristone (the first medication dispensed for medical abortion).” Given that in the UK alone there was an increase of more than four thousand unborn children killed in the first six months of 2020 as a result of the Government’s pandemic abortion policy (with the increase already making itself felt in the first month of the policy’s introduction), it is not unreasonable to estimate a total overall increase of tens of thousands of abortions in the countries mentioned above. If, in particular countries, like in the US, these temporary policies become permanent then the home abortion death-toll of governments' reactions to Covid-19 may eventually be expected to surpass the nearly-six-million “natural” deaths from Covid-19 officially reported worldwide.

Tragically, as Calx Mariae goes to press, the Welsh government has announced that temporary arrangements allowing early abortions to be carried out at home during the pandemic are being made permanent.

Mercifully, in England, following a powerful grassroots campaign led by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the Government has announced that the temporary measure allowing women to take both abortion pills at home will end at midnight on 29 August 2022. However, the Department of Health and Social Care has said that it will keep the situation “under review” and British pro-life campaigners, led by SPUC, will be deploying all their resources to persuade parliamentarians and the UK government not to succumb to the pro-abortion lobby's pressure to perform a U-turn and to re-introduce the measure on a permanent basis after six months.

As people in various parts of the world look forward once again to enjoying the freedom to travel and other freedoms, Catholics and the pro-life movement must remain firmly focused on what may yet prove to be Covid-19’s worst legacy: unborn children being murdered in ever-increasing numbers in reaction to the pandemic.

What can we do?

First, UK citizens who wish to assist the campaign to stop home abortions in England should visit spuc.org.uk and citizens of other countries should support the activities of good pro-life organisations in their own part of the world.

Secondly, Catholics must have recourse to prayer, penance and perseverance.

Legislation introduced by powerful governments, giving wider access to abortion around the world, provides another illustration that we are living through a war of apocalyptic proportions, waged against humanity at its very core. This war cannot be won without the Church, and, in particular, without Catholic bishops wielding their God-given authority to teach and lead souls to honour God’s commandments concerning the bioethical issues which threaten, not just the temporal, but the eternal welfare of every human being alive as well as of all those yet to exist.

The reality, however, is that, while secular governments cave in to the pro-abortion lobby, bishops throughout the world, and the Pope himself, are caving in to politicians who flagrantly insist on voting for abortion laws and other evils such as same-sex “marriage”.

In the US, the bishops overwhelmingly persevere in failing to condemn the widespread reception of Holy Communion by pro-abortion politicians, including President Biden, whose claim that Pope Francis told him that he was “a good Catholic” and that he “should keep receiving Communion” was met only with the Vatican response that it was “a private conversation”.

In the UK, an email sent from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) in March 2014 to Catholic parliamentarians, stated: “There are no plans by any bishops in England and Wales to deny Communion to Catholic MPs or peers who voted in favour of same-sex marriage legislation last year.” This message went out in defiance of Catholic doctrine that: “To vote in favour of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.”3

Even while war is being waged against humanity at its core, we witness endless skirmishes in our own camp; not only the silence and submission, but the very statements, of our spiritual leaders contradict the unchanging truth entrusted through them, by divine authority, to the Church which they serve. Under these circumstances, in addition to taking prudent pro-life action, ordinary Catholics must resort to prayer and penance: the infallible means of making reparation for sin. In other words, Catholics must have recourse to Mary.

Early in the 20th century, Our Lady appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, warning them of a great chastisement if “people do not cease offending God”.

Our Lady of Fatima’s apocalyptic warnings are transfused by a message of hope for humanity, but only on condition that we “cease offending God”.

It is evident that “people”, not least Church leaders, have not ceased offending. What is the way forward?

Our Lady of Fatima has shown us the way.

We must play our part in bringing about the triumph of her Immaculate Heart by making acts of reparation and, on five consecutive First Saturdays of the month:

• Going to Confession • Receiving Holy Communion • Praying the Rosary • Meditating for fifteen minutes on one or more of the mysteries of the Rosary • All done with the intention of making reparation for offences against the Immaculate Heart of

Mary. These are: (1) blasphemies against the

Immaculate Conception, (2) blasphemies against her Perpetual Virginity, (3) blasphemies against her Divine Maternity and refusal to recognise her as the Mother of all mankind, (4) blasphemies of those who seek openly to foster in the hearts of children indifference or contempt and even hatred for this Immaculate Mother, (5) the offences of those who directly outrage her in her holy images.

“In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph,” Our Blessed Mother assures us. The situation could not be more serious but, with her help, it is far from desperate.

“And where sin abounded, grace did more abound” (Romans 5:20) ENDNOTES:

1. Department of Health and Social Care, “Temporary approval of home use for both stages of early medical abortion”, 30 March 2020. 2. Department of Health and Social Care, “Abortion statistics for England and Wales during the COVID-19 pandemic”, updated 17 March 2021. 3. Considerations regarding proposals to give legal recognition to unions between homosexual persons, Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 3 June 2003.