A nine-year-old Brazilian girl who was impregnated after being allegedly raped by her stepfather underwent an abortion yesterday.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.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.
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."
Image- Javno.hr
Online Sources- FOX News, Reuters, AP, earthtimes.org, Javno.hr
The archbishop refers to God's Law. However, abortion is nowhere forbidden in the Bible; indeed, it isn't even mentioned. So the Church applies the fifth commandment: Thou shalt not kill. Look who's talking--the Catholic Church ranks right behind folks like Nero, Caligula, Hitler, and Stalin when it comes to killing those who have disagreed with it over the centuries. If the Church had had its way, the girl would have died a slow and painful death, with her twins, when they would have grown too big for her little body. Killed by the Church, all three of them. Thou shalt not kill, indeed.
ReplyDeleteThe mother and the doctors have been excommunicated. But not the stepfather, he who broke an actual command in God's Law: Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. (Lev. 18:17) The punishment to be administered is spelled out in clear: Everyone who does any of these detestable things—such persons must be cut off from their people. (Lev. 18:29) Excommunication, that is. Commanded in God's Law, but not carried out by the Church, because the poor sinner is a man. In the eyes of the Church, he's still a Catholic in good standing.
The misogynism of conservative so-called Christians comes from the same Middle Eastern tradition as that of conservative Muslims like the Taleban: Woman, even at nine years old, is but a vessel meant to bear sons for a man. She has no rights, particularly not over her own body. If there are complications with a pregnancy and a choice has to be made, always let the woman die: she has no value.
For more on failed religious institutions, read my free book.
Thank you Gregory Greene. You've laid out the most reasonable argument I've ever seen. I'll check out your book.
ReplyDeleteA monstrosity over much of its history. It, the Vatican, bent only on total power and dominance and control, is what needs to be aborted. And look where it's current leader got his early training in life.
ReplyDeleteIt is time for the men in fancy dresses to be sent packing where they belong - in the stone age.
So glad I and my whole family left this big house of horrors. At least, my kids weren't raped by the perverts the church created with its puritanical attitudes on sex. And then blamed on gays, forgetting that 99.9% of all such acts are by heterosexuals.
And then the church hid its crimes for decades. The Vatican and it's hierarchy should be excommunicated from existance
And then maybe the good priests can modernize the church. But we are not holding our breath, we left long ago - almost the whole extended family. Free at last, Free at last, Free at last. (I borrow the words of a good man who was murdered by another spinoff of the church, the independent right wing christian churches and so. Baptists who gave us slavery and segregation.) Thank God Almighty we are free at last.