The Paradigm of the Paradox: Women, Pregnant Women, and the Unequal Burdens of the Zika Virus Pandemic.
The Zika pandemic provides biomedical scientists, clinicians, public health advocates, and governments a unique 
opportunity to advance reproductive justice by addressing the paradoxes outlined in this essay. The  circumstances 
in which pregnancies occur are morally relevant to women’s reproductive life decisions, to the provision of reproductive 
health care, and to the development of reproductive health policy. Whether the Zika pandemic might foster context-driven reproductive pandemic
planning and response is yet to be determined. Maintaining the status quo will surely increase a range
of global health disparities and further stratify reproduction, producing predictable and preventable outcomes
in which some people receive the necessary care and resources to achieve family building while others
are neglected. Women and men should be able to count on biomedical researchers to answer the questions that
need answering without undue influence from political agendas. Women should be able to continue pregnancies
and count on public health assistance and help for children with Zika-related disabilities, or prevent or end a
Zika-affected pregnancy. Pandemic responses that don’t further these ends are morally unacceptable.
a School of Medicine , University of Michigan.
Lisa H
LH
Harris
b David Geffen School of Medicine , UCLA.
Neil S
NS
Silverman
c Schools of Medicine and Nursing , University of Virginia.
Mary Faith
MF
Marshall
D005260:Female; D006291:Health Policy; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D058873:Pandemics; D011247:Pregnancy; D011251:Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / Q000209:etiology*; D037841:Pregnant People; D012098:Reproduction; D000071244:Zika Virus / Q000502:physiology*; D000071243:Zika Virus Infection / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000635:transmission / Q000821:virology