Another Brazilian minor is raped and impregnated

The debate over abortion in Brazil may heat up again after another raped girl was impregnated.

As originally reported by the Brazilian press via the Catholic News Agency, a 13 year-old girl is four months pregnant after being raped by her father. The girl and her legal guardian appealed to allow her to give birth and it seems as if officials will permit her to do so.

Earlier this month a firestorm developed when a nine-year-old girl aborted her twins after doctors deemed the procedure necessary due to her very weak health. Despite the extreme circumstances surrounding her pregnancy (e.g. she had been abused for years by her stepfather) the Brazilian archdiocese and the Vatican strongly condemned the abortion.

In the face of a backlash the Vatican began to backtrack from its overly harsh and unfair criticism. Some local Brazilian priests tried to downplay the Archdiocese's reaction though they also blasted the girl’s abortion:

The pastor, Father Edson Rodrigues, “making use of his pastoral care, when he heard the news in his residence, immediately went to the house of the family, in which he met the girl and lent her his support and presence, before the grave and difficult situation in which the girl found herself. And this attitude continued every day, from Alagoinha to Recife, where the sad event of the abortion of the two innocent babies took place.”

Therefore, the priests wrote, “it is quite evident and unequivocal that nobody thought first of all of ‘excommunication.’” We used all means at our disposal to avoid the abortion and thus save all three lives,” they said.

Image- The Telegraph
Online Sources- The Latin Americanist, Catholic News Agency