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Brazil: Vatican injustice for pregnant child's mum & abortion doctors, but not for child's rapist |
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The Latin Americanist~ Thursday, March 05, 2009
Brazil: Raped girl aborts twins  A nine-year-old Brazilian girl who was impregnated after being allegedly raped by her stepfather underwent an abortion yesterday (Image- Javno.hr)
The child- who’s identity is being kept private- would’ve had her life in danger had she allowed the pregnancy to continue according to doctors. (At the time of the abortion the eighty-pound girl was in her fifteenth week of pregnancy). "She is very small. Her uterus doesn't have the ability to hold one, let alone two children," said Fatima Maia- the director of the hospital where the abortion was performed.
The 23-year-old man accused of violating his stepdaughter currently sits in jail where he awaits trial. Local media reports that he allegedly had been abusing the girl since the age of six and that he paid her for his sexual abuse.
Abortion is illegal in Brazil yet judges can make exceptions in cases of rape or if the mother’s life is in danger. (Both circumstances appear to be the case here).
Ideally, local religious officials should provide compassion and understanding to a girl who had been traumatized and the victim of rape. Sadly that was not the case:
A Roman Catholic archbishop says the abortion of twins carried by a 9-year-old girl who allegedly was raped by her stepfather means excommunication for the girl's mother and her doctors.
Despite the nature of the case, the church had to hold its line against abortion, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said in an interview aired Thursday by Globo television.
"The law of God is higher than any human laws," he said. "When a human law that is, a law enacted by human legislators is against the law of God, that law has no value. The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion have incurred excommunication."
The Archbishop’s comments were strongly (and rightly) rebuked by Brazilian authorities; "I believe the position of the church is extreme, radical and inadequate," Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said.
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 Thursday March 5, 2009
Brazil attacks church opposition to girl's abortionBy Stuart Grudgings
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's health minister accused the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday of an "extreme" and "inadequate" position in opposing an abortion for a 9-year-old girl suspected to have been raped by her stepfather.
Doctors in the northeastern city of Recife performed the abortion on Wednesday after deciding that the girl could have died if her pregnancy with twins was allowed to continue. According to media reports, the girl was nearly four months pregnant.
The Catholic Church's archbishop for the area criticized the decision as against "the law of God" and excommunicated her mother, the doctors and other people involved in the abortion.
"I believe the position of the church is extreme, radical and inadequate," Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said on a government radio program.
"I am shocked by the radical position of this religion which, wrongly saying it is defending a life, puts another life in danger that is as important as any other."
Temporao, who has frequently challenged the church on issues from abortions to the government's supply of free condoms, defended the doctors' decision to perform the abortion, saying they had acted "strictly within the law."
Abortion is illegal in Brazil, which has more Catholics than any other nation, but exceptions are allowed in cases of rape and when the mother's life would be endangered by giving birth.
"The law of God is above any human law," Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, the archbishop of Olinda and Recife, said on newspaper O Globo's website.
Officials at the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil, which represents the church's interests in the country, were not immediately available for comment.
Olimpio Moraes, one of the doctors involved in the abortion, said that the girl's circumstances had met both exceptions to the country's abortion ban.
"As doctors, we could not allow a girl of 9 to suffer like this or until she paid with her own life," he said.
The pregnancy was discovered last week when the girl complained of pain. Doctors said her life was at risk because of her young age and because she was pregnant with twins.
Globo reported police as saying that the stepfather had been arrested and had admitted sexually abusing the girl since she was 6 years old.
Despite the girl's young age, she wouldn't have been the youngest person to become pregnant. A 5-year-old Peruvian is recorded in case annals as having given birth in 1939.
(Reporting by Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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The Age ~~ Melbourne ~~ March 8, 2009
Vatican defends excommunication for 'raped' nine-year-old girl's abortionA senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after allegedly being raped by her stepfather.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Catholic church's Congregation for Bishops, told the daily La Stampa on Saturday that the twins the girl had been carrying had a right to live.
"It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated," he said.
Re, who also heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, added: "Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified."
The row was triggered by the termination on Wednesday of twin fetuses carried by a nine-year-old allegedly raped by her stepfather in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
The regional archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, pronounced excommunication for the mother for authorising the operation and doctors who carried it out for fear that the slim girl would not survive carrying the fetuses to term.
"God's law is above any human law. So when a human law ... is contrary to God's law, this human law has no value," Cardoso had said.
He also said the accused stepfather would not be expelled from the church. Although the man allegedly committed "a heinous crime ... the abortion - the elimination of an innocent life - was more serious".
Battista Re agreed, saying: "Excommunication for those who carried out the abortion is just" as a pregnancy termination always meant ending an innocent life.
The case has sparked fierce debate in Brazil, where abortion is illegal except in cases of rape or if the woman's health is in danger.
On Friday, President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva hit out at Sobrinho's decision, saying: "As a Christian and a Catholic, I deeply regret that a bishop of the Catholic church has such a conservative attitude."
"The doctors did what had to be done: save the life of a girl of nine years old," he said, adding that "in this case, the medical profession was more right than the church."
One of the doctors involved in the abortion, Rivaldo Albuquerque, told Globo television that he would keep going to mass, regardless of the archbishop's order.
"The people want a church full of forgiveness, love and mercy," he said.
Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao also slammed the archbishop.
"Two things strike me: the assault on the girl and the position of this bishop, which is truly lamentable," he said.
The girl, who was not identified because she is a minor, was last week found to be four months' pregnant after being taken to hospital suffering stomach pains.
Officials said she told them she had suffered sexual abuse by her stepfather since the age of six.
Police said the 23-year-old stepfather also allegedly sexually abused the girl's physically handicapped 14-year-old sister.
He was arrested a week ago and is being kept in protective custody. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
The website of the news group Globo reported that another girl, aged 11, had been found to be seven months pregnant following alleged sexual abuse at the hands of her adoptive father.
The girl has said she does not intend to seek an abortion, according to reports.
AFP
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