It’s terrifying to be pregnant during a deadly global pandemic that has cleared grocery store shelves, started to overwhelm hospitals and infect staff, slashed hundreds of thousands of jobs, confined many Americans to their homes, and in some cases, banned partners from being present in the hospital room during childbirth. But it’s a special kind of nightmare to be in that situation if the pregnancy was the result of violence or was unwanted to begin with.

Nevertheless, in this dystopian reality, Republican leaders in Texas and Ohio are cynically exploiting the novel coronavirus outbreak as a pretext to further their personal ideological goals and criminalize abortion.

On Monday, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton—who calls himself a “Pro-Life All Star” on his website—included abortion in a list of “non-essential” surgeries that the state is suspending, directing providers either to stop performing them unless the mother’s life or health is danger or to face heavy fines and up to 180 days in jail. Ohio’s attorney general David Yost also mandated all of the state’s abortion clinics to “immediately stop performing nonessential and elective surgical abortions” last week. Politicians in both states have been trying for nearly a decade to shut down abortion clinics but have been repeatedly thwarted by the courts, because the Supreme Court decided in 1973 to protect a woman’s right to access abortion until her fetus would be viable outside the womb.

Actual doctors swatted down these Republicans’ dubious claim that abortion is “nonessential” healthcare. "Abortion is an essential component of comprehensive health care," said the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) in a joint statement with several other reproductive health organizations last week. “It is also a time-sensitive service for which a delay of several weeks, or in some cases days, may increase the risks or potentially make it completely inaccessible. The consequences of being unable to obtain an abortion profoundly impact a person's life, health, and well-being."

In other words, banning abortion right now means some women, those of lesser means and more vulnerable, will be forced to give birth during this global pandemic, whether or not they are psychologically or economically able to raise a child. Women with means will attempt to travel out of state for abortion care at a time when everyone is being asked to stay home for the sake of public health, and while domestic violence is on the rise. And some women, inevitably, will attempt to perform abortions on themselves, outside the care of a licensed medical provider, and then have to roll the dice on whether a potentially overwhelmed emergency room will be able to help them stop the bleeding in time. As U.S. confirmed cases and deaths start to accelerate, the World Health Organization says the United States is about to be the epicenter of the pandemic.

What’s especially nonsensical about Texas and Ohio targeting abortion access while New York governor Andrew Cuomo is literally begging the federal government for 30,000 ventilators to help keep his constituents alive is that some of these so-called “pro-life” legislators are, at the same time, being puzzlingly flippant about letting people die from the coronavirus. Another anti-abortion Texas official, lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, told Fox News on Monday that he agrees with Donald Trump’s inclination to send people back to work much earlier than health officials recommend because many grandparents would happily die for the sake of the stock market. “No one reached out to me and said, 'As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that America loves for its children and grandchildren?' And if that is the exchange, I'm all in,” said Patrick. This is the same guy that once blamed school shootings on abortion, reasoning America has “devalued life.” Meanwhile, Texas hospitals, even in the wealthiest communities, are facing a severe bed shortage and begging people to donate masks, gowns, hand soap, gloves and other basic necessities—while governor Greg Abbott says there is “no great urgency” about that.