Healthcare is a crucial part of any just, equitable, and truly humane society. As America confronts COVID-19, our healthcare system is under scrutiny for its inaccessibility to the vulnerable among us.

One of the most overlooked and vulnerable populations among us are pregnant women. During this public health emergency, women aren’t just struggling to get high-quality and affordable healthcare; they are also the victims of exploitation by a predatory abortion industry.

The coronavirus threatens the physical health of women. But the outbreak itself is a source of enormous social and financial disruption. It has shut-down nonessential businesses, leading to unprecedented layoffs and robbing many women of income and employer-provided healthcare. To make matters worse, the coronavirus is causing an invisible mental and emotional toll, worsening many women’s mental health as anxiety skyrockets, and social isolation robs women of emotional support.

Yet, through all of this, abortion clinics are staying open.

In direct defiance of government orders to put a halt on elective surgeries, abortion providers are preying upon financially insecure and emotionally vulnerable women, and all for profit. Just as one would expect during a time of uncertainty and confusion, these clinics are seeing an uptick in abortion interest from women who suddenly may feel they have nowhere left to turn.

But abortion is the last thing women need right now.

Pregnant women especially need holistic healthcare and protection from preventable harm — a complete range of services from prenatal care to psychological and social support. Now more than ever before, as we combat the public health emergency of the coronavirus outbreak, we need to shine the spotlight on the close connection between authentic women’s empowerment and real, life-affirming healthcare.

While abortion providers try to exploit women during this emergency, we have to fight for the alternatives to abortion that truly empower women to make free, life-affirming choices about their healthcare and that improve the well-being of their families. Because right now, instead of fighting for every woman’s right to holistic care, many activists and lawmakers fight for the rights of abortion providers. Just recently, members of Congress tried to use the coronavirus health emergency to smuggle federal funding for abortion providers into an aid bill.

We have to change the conversation and resist the abortion industry’s false narrative that abortion empowers women. Women deserve a truly life-affirming and family-empowering framework of care. At Human Coalition, roughly 75% of abortion-seeking women we speak to say if their circumstances were different, they would prefer to parent. That doesn’t sound like these women feel they have much of a “choice,” does it?

To provide a complete framework of care, we need to advocate for every woman’s right to access the options and resources she needs to make a lasting benefit to her life, safety, and family — including before, during, and after a pregnancy. That means advocating to provide women with comprehensive prenatal care, robust counseling services, financial and social support, and even access to telehealth and virtual healthcare solutions when getting to a doctor in person just isn’t an option.

To treat abortion, even “safe” abortion, as the default option for women in a time of crisis is to fail to care for them. Studies show that abortion exposes women to nonnegligible physical risk and inflicts profound emotional damage.

What’s more, abortion never addresses the underlying issues that women face today when tackling our expensive and bureaucratically complex healthcare system. Overwhelmingly, women who seek abortion belong to vulnerable and high-risk populations. Nearly 50% of women who have an abortion live below the federal poverty line, and abortion disproportionately affects communities of color. And approximately 75% of women seeking abortion say they’re facing difficult social and economic pressures that they can’t handle on their own.

The truth is that most women seek abortions for nonmedical reasons and obtain abortion as a quick solution to problems unrelated to their reproductive health. In response, we simply must demand and fight for every woman’s access to a holistic framework of care that cuts across social and economic boundaries and delivers real care to women where and when they need it most.

The coronavirus pandemic is exposing the fact that women’s healthcare just isn’t close to where it should be. That abortion clinics are staying open and that so few are fighting to get women real care during this crisis reveals just how far we have to go.

Chelsey Youman is Texas state director and national legislative adviser at Human Coalition Action, the public policy advocacy arm of Human Coalition.