Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but something international/political/religious has really been bugging me--and we should all get bugged about this together.
To put the back story quickly, in Brazil, a 9 year old girl (recall this fact) was raped by her stepfather and impregnated. With twins. Again, she is 9 years old; she weighs 80 pounds. Fatima Maia, director of the hospital where the girl was treated, said the pregnancy posed a serious risk to the girl. "She is very small. Her uterus doesn't have the ability to hold one, let alone two children," Maia told the Jornal do Brasil newspaper.
Wisely, an abortion was performed, despite the illegality of such procedures in very Catholic Brazil (judges can make exceptions when the pregnancy is the result of rape or there is a danger to the mother--in this situation, both were the case, and a judge allowed the procedure).
The Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in northeastern Brazil has brazenly stepped up their vocalization against the abortion, in this SPECIFIC case, beginning with making a statement against it...proclaiming that this little girl, this child, should have carried the babies to term and had a c-section. This 9 year old girl. Then, the Church excommunicated the little girl's mother and the doctors involved in the case. And finally, the Vatican has come out in defense of the Archbishop who did the excommunicating deed, saying, "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."
I know the Catholic Church may seem a bit hypocritical if they were to, instead of lambasting an INNOCENT 9 year old girl, say, come out with a firm statement proclaiming the ongoing sexual assault of a child as disgusting, inexcusable, and the "real problem" of this entire story. Where is the mention of retaining the innocence of the victim? Is the value of her life, her childhood, her future less important then that of those she was carrying, against her will, against her own body's biological capability?
I don't care where you fall on the Choice spectrum...this story does more then trigger a debate, it exemplifies why all people, the faithful and the skeptical have to keep pressure on the religious institutions that put their version of the word of God before personal freedoms, progressive thought and even the health and safety of a 9 year old rape victim.
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Nice blog!!
ReplyDeleteThis is a tragic story. I think you bring up a really good point about the need to address the "real problem." Perhaps if the church did more to stand up against rape (and abuse and poverty and prostitution, etc), it could more effectively lower the number of abortions in our world. Not to say the church doesn't work towards eliminating poverty, but I don't see much in those other areas -- rape, abuse...
Did the stepfather get excommunicated in this story? You didn't mention it...and I feel that if anyone needed to be excommunicated, it should have been him.
the stepfather was not excommunicated... incredibly enough. the church deems abortion (in any and all situations) a worse offense then raping a small child. the only reason the little girl wasn't excommunicated was because she is a minor. insanity persists.
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