The war on women is hurting our fight against the (Zika) virus

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/zika-fetal-anomaly-microcephaly-abortion-united-states

As the Zika virus travels north from Latin America, public health experts are paying particular attention to pregnant women. That's because, even though the virus causes just minor, flu-like symptoms in most adults, it's also been linked to microcephaly, a rare prenatal disorder that prevents fetus's brains from fully developing and can cause severe developmental and neurological symptoms.

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The states projected to be hardest hit by Zika also lack family planning resources. The CDC's efforts to combat Zika have dually focused on mosquito control and the protection of pregnant women. The agency has asked that states prepare for the virus by advising pregnant women, or women trying to become pregnant, to postpone travel and use condoms. But of the three states with the most reported cases of Zika so far—Florida, New York, and Texas, in that order—only in New York does sexual health figure prominently in the government's response. New York state is making 20,000 kits, which include insect repellent as well as condoms, available for pregnant women. By contrast, preventing transmission to pregnant women figures much less prominently on the Texas and Florida health department websites. It's probably not a coincidence that access to family planning services is actually decreasing in Texas and Florida, where both states have blocked public funding to Planned Parenthood. In Florida in 2010 (the most recent data), 59 percent of pregnancies were unintended, more than ten percent higher than the national rate. Fifty-four percent of pregnancies were unplanned in Texas that year.

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Most women with microcephaly diagnoses won't be able to get an abortion. According to the CDC, fetal ultrasound is the best way to test for abnormalities such as microcephaly. If a pregnant woman whose fetus has microcephaly decides to terminate her pregnancy, she probably won't be able to get an abortion because of restrictive abortion laws. Only a few states, including North Dakota and most recently Indiana, ban abortion in cases of genetic abnormalities like Down Syndrome or microcephaly. But the vast majority of states ban abortion starting at the end of the second trimester. Twelve states outlaw abortion after 20 weeks, three states ban the procedure after the third trimester (27 weeks), and the rest ban abortion around viability, or 24 weeks. Some states do permit later abortions in cases of fetal anomaly, but in all but one of those states the anomaly must be lethal. Because testing for the disorder doesn't happen until 18 weeks gestation, at the earliest, and symptoms typically won't show up until the end of the second trimester, at around 24 weeks, or even the beginning of the third trimester, women waiting for a diagnosis of microcephaly end up either outside of the window for legal abortions, or bumping up right against it.

"We've realized that being able to identify abnormalities early in pregnancy is quite critical," says Neil S. Silverman, a physician and professor in the division of maternal-fetal medicine at UCLA and a member of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. "If we diagnose the woman with an abnormal fetal brain at 22 weeks, it's not helpful because she won't have the full range of options available to her."

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States are actually hurting efforts to increase scientific understanding of the virus and its effects on pregnancy. As part of the effort to come down hard on Planned Parenthood following the release of the misleading and selectively edited videos last summer, lawmakers in 18 states are pushing through legislation to block fetal tissue research, despite the fact that it's crucial in understanding disorders like microcephaly. Florida became the latest state to restrict fetal tissue research when on Friday Gov. Rick Scott signed a bill that prohibits the donation of aborted tissue.

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