Sixty people lost their lives when Hurricane Harvey slammed into Texas last week. The owner of a chain of abortion businesses in the state is hoping to increase the death toll.
Amy Hagstrom Miller, owner of Whole Woman’s Health, is offering no-cost abortions for the month of September.
“During Hurricane Harvey, many of the clinics in Houston had to close temporarily, leaving women with very few options,” according to the abortion seller’s website. “We can only imagine what a stressful time this must be for those patients who had to miss their appointments or are waiting for the nearest clinic to open.”
Miller’s focus on making sure babies die is just plain ghoulish.
Those of us fortunate enough to be able to watch the hurricane from our safe and dry homes wept as we read of a family of six – great-grandparents and four children – who drowned in a van; a young man electrocuted as he went to try to rescue a cat – selflessly warning a friend not to touch him; a couple killed trying to escape the storm; a little girl rescued from the flood, clutching her mother’s lifeless body. Every Harvey death was a tragedy.
But we also saw images of incredible bravery, selflessness and ingenuity.
From The Washington Post: “After the storm blew into Houston, a remarkable network of boat owners with smartphones, worried neighbors with laptops and digital wizards with mapping software popped up to summon and support an army of Good Samaritans who motored, rowed and waded into dangerous waters to save family, friends and total strangers.”
We saw a photo of an infant baby cradled in his mother’s arms – and the mom cradled in the arms of a rescuer. We sat transfixed as we watched videos of horses, cows, dogs, kittens and even a hawk being saved from the rushing water.
Those who could, opened their wallets, with one fund, started by JJ Watt of the Houston Texans, collecting more than $200 million to help those who suffered losses in the storm.
All of this allowed us a moment, too fleeting, to think about the enormous compassion human beings are capable of showing in bad times.
But then the opportunists arrived.
Heartless looters ransacked the home of an 89-year-old woman, even as her body floated in four feet of water. And Amy Hagstrom Miller had an idea to bring in more customers to her killing centers: Offer free abortion, with travel and housing costs covered as well.
True, she won’t make money from these abortions. But many women who have one abortion go on to have another, so she might benefit from repeat customers. And the publicity she is getting, both positive and negative, will also help her bottom line.
Miller is a high-profile abortion profiteer because of the publicity she gained when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in her favor – and against women’s safety – in Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt, so it’s no surprise to find her in the news again. She’s trying to offer a quick fix to women who think they have no other choice, but we know from the women of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign that this quick fix can and often does lead to a lifetime of regret.
As I’m watching Hurricane Irma barreling toward my new Florida home, my thoughts are still in Texas. It’s disheartening to think that amid the tragedy and heroism that will be the twin legacy of Hurricane Harvey, some mothers will forever remember that they, too, lost something in the storm.
Janet Morana is the executive director of Priests for Life and co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.
