Immoral

I don't know if any of you have heard of the case in Brazil of the nine-year old girl who was raped, allegedly by her own stepfather, who was pregnant with twins. She underwent an abortion (illegal in Brazil except in very rare circumstances with the approval of a court). The judge approved the abortion because the director of the university hospital where the abortion was performed made it clear that the nine-year-old was simply too small to carry one child to term let alone two and the pregnancy presented a grave risk to her.

The story first made the news because a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in northeastern Brazil declared that the nine-year old should have been forced to carry the pregnancy to term and called the abortion murder.

Then a regional archbishop in Brazil excommunicated the mother of the girl, the doctors who performed the life-saving surgery, but not the alleged rapist (who is also suspected of repeatedly raping the nine-year old's disabled teenage sister).

So this is just Brazil, right?

Well, now the Vatican has defended the excommunications:

A 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 being raped.

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.

[snip]

Re, who also heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, added: "Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian church is unjustified."

[snip]

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 foetuses 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.

Can someone explain to me how the nine-year old girl is not also an innocent life?

Can someone please explain how the nine-year old girl's mother and doctors were not trying to save an innocent life?

Can someone justify this to me?

Seriously.

For some reason, I'm reminded of something David just blogged about.

I am also reminded of the fact that the Republican Party Platform wanted to outlaw all abortions including those to save the life of the mother.

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