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Archbishop Kenneth Richards of Kingston, Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica, September 27, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — A Jamaican archbishop has said Catholic communities will care for babies born with microcephaly amid suggestions that the country legalize abortion for pregnant women infected with the Zika virus.

Kingston Archbishop Kenneth Richards says Jamaica must preserve its humanity by respecting life and not by succumbing to the easy way out of the current crisis associated with the Zika virus, reported The Gleaner.

Richards’ comment comes after Dr. Dayton Campbell, a member of Parliament, has been pushing to make abortion available to infected pregnant women whose pre-born babies have been diagnosed with microcephaly. Abortion is illegal in the country except to save the life of the mother or to preserve her physical or mental health.

While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the New England Journal of Medicine have linked the Zika virus to the non-life threatening condition of microcephaly, a recent study of nearly 12,000 pregnant Colombian women infected with Zika found that none of them had a baby with that condition, casting doubt on the Zika/microcephaly connection.

The Archbishop said that pushing abortion as a solution to a baby with a non-life threatening condition like microcephaly expresses prejudice against disabled persons, adding that it amounts to supporting eugenics, the weeding out of persons considered ‘unfit’ to live.

He has designated two communities in Jamaica — The Missionaries of the Poor and Mustard Seed Communities — to receive and care for any child born with microcephaly, reported The Gleaner.