Nine-year-old's abortion outrages Brazil's Catholic Church

[Al-khiyal]

Nine-year-old's abortion outrages Brazil's Catholic Church

March 6, 2009 -- The case of the pregnant 9-year-old was shocking enough. But it was the response of the Catholic Church that infuriated many Brazilians. Archibishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of the coastal city of Recife announced that the Vatican was excommunicating the family of a local girl who had been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather, because they had chosen to have the girl undergo an abortion. The Church excommunicated the doctors who performed the procedure as well. "God's laws," said the archbishop, dictate that abortion is a sin and that transgressors are no longer welcome in the Roman Catholic Church. "They took the life of an innocent," Sobrinho told TIME in a telephone interview. "Abortion is much more serious than killing an adult. An adult may or may not be an innocent, but an unborn child is most definitely innocent. Taking that life cannot be ignored."

The case has caused a furor. Abortion is illegal in Brazil except in cases of rape or when the mother's life is in danger, both of which apply in this case. (The girl's immature hips would have made labor dangerous; the Catholic opinion was that she could have had a cesarean section.) When the incident came to light in local newspapers, the Church first asked a judge to halt the process and then condemned those involved, including the 9-year-old's distraught mother. Even Catholic Brazilians were shocked at the harshness of the archbishop's actions. "In this case, most people support the doctors and the family. Everything they did was legal and correct," says Beatriz Galli, the policy associate for Ipsas Brasil, an NGO that fights to give women more say over their health and reproductive rights. "But the Church takes these positions that are so rigid that it ends up weakened. It is very intolerant, and that intolerance is going to scare off more and more followers."

The case has caused a furor. Abortion is illegal in Brazil except in cases of rape or when the mother's life is in danger, both of which apply in this case. (The girl's immature hips would have made labor dangerous; the Catholic opinion was that she could have had a cesarean section.) When the incident came to light in local newspapers, the Church first asked a judge to halt the process and then condemned those involved, including the 9-year-old's distraught mother. Even Catholic Brazilians were shocked at the harshness of the archbishop's actions. "In this case, most people support the doctors and the family. Everything they did was legal and correct," says Beatriz Galli, the policy associate for Ipsas Brasil, an NGO that fights to give women more say over their health and reproductive rights. "But the Church takes these positions that are so rigid that it ends up weakened. It is very intolerant, and that intolerance is going to scare off more and more followers."

The public-relations campaigns of the Catholic Church's rivals do not impress Archbishop Cardoso Sobrinho. He told TIME that the Vatican rejects believers who pick and choose their issues. Rome "is not going to open the door to anyone just to get more members," he said after comparing abortion to the Holocaust. "We know that people have other ideas, but if they do, then they are not Catholics. We want people who adhere to God's laws."

In Brazil, that hard line carries over into public life and government policy. While equally devout neighbors Mexico, Colombia and Uruguay have taken steps to give women more of a say in the matter of terminating pregnancies, Brazilian public opinion supports the status quo, and the country's Congress last year voted overwhelmingly to reject a modest attempt at decriminalizing abortion. The advances that have taken place are mostly local initiatives carried out almost surreptitiously, such as the move by São Paulo states to offer the morning-after pill and heavily discounted contraceptive pills at state-run pharmacies.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva did make a halfhearted attempt to spur a national debate last year, calling abortion a public-health issue — even as he declared himself steadfastly against it. But with the Church quick to stifle such talk and the general public not sufficiently engaged to demand action, the debate never took off. In truth, abortions and unwanted pregnancies are a sad constant in Brazil. Although abortion is illegal, an estimated 1 million women each year have one. The poor are forced into clandestine clinics or take medication, while the better-off are treated by qualified physicians at well-appointed surgeries known to anyone with money and overlooked by colluding authorities.

That secrecy has a price. More than 200,000 women each year are treated in public hospitals for complications arising from illegal abortions, according to Health Ministry figures. Those who don't have the courage or the money to be treated take the pregnancy to term. Although the fertility rate has fallen considerably in Brazil (from 6.1 children in 1960 to about 2 today), 1 in 3 pregnancies is unwanted, according to Dr. Jefferson Drezett, head of the Hospital Perola Byington, Latin America's largest women's health clinic. Meanwhile, 1 in 7 Brazilian women between the ages of 15 and 19 is a mother, and the average age at which women have their first child has fallen to 21, from 22.4 in 1996, according to a government-funded study.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva did make a halfhearted attempt to spur a national debate last year, calling abortion a public-health issue — even as he declared himself steadfastly against it. But with the Church quick to stifle such talk and the general public not sufficiently engaged to demand action, the debate never took off. In truth, abortions and unwanted pregnancies are a sad constant in Brazil. Although abortion is illegal, an estimated 1 million women each year have one. The poor are forced into clandestine clinics or take medication, while the better-off are treated by qualified physicians at well-appointed surgeries known to anyone with money and overlooked by colluding authorities.

That secrecy has a price. More than 200,000 women each year are treated in public hospitals for complications arising from illegal abortions, according to Health Ministry figures. Those who don't have the courage or the money to be treated take the pregnancy to term. Although the fertility rate has fallen considerably in Brazil (from 6.1 children in 1960 to about 2 today), 1 in 3 pregnancies is unwanted, according to Dr. Jefferson Drezett, head of the Hospital Perola Byington, Latin America's largest women's health clinic. Meanwhile, 1 in 7 Brazilian women between the ages of 15 and 19 is a mother, and the average age at which women have their first child has fallen to 21, from 22.4 in 1996, according to a government-funded study.

[Al-khiyal]

Brazil president blasts bishop in rape case

RIO DE JANEIRO, March 6, 2009: Brazil's president on Friday sharply criticized a Roman Catholic archbishop for declaring that those involved in an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim were excommunicated.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that as a Catholic, he "profoundly laments" the archbishop's comments.

Silva said that doctors saved the girl's life by performing the abortion. The 80-pound (36-kilogram) child was carrying twins following an alleged rape by her stepfather.

Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said Thursday that the mother and doctors of the girl were excommunicated because of the abortion.

The comments apparently were meant to underscore the Vatican's tough line on abortion: Under church law, excommunication is automatic for faithful who have, perform or help procure an abortion.

Abortion is generally illegal in Brazil, but is allowed in cases of rape, if the woman's life is in danger or if the fetus has no chance of survival.

[Al-khiyal]

Archbishop explains excommunications in abortion case involving 9 year-old

Brasilia, March 6, 2009 (CNA).- Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho of Recife, Brazil has rebuffed reports that the Church excommunicated a 9 year-old girl whose twins were aborted. The girl underwent the abortion after a court ordered it, citing the fact that she was pregnant because of rape.

The Brazilian press attacked the Catholic Church today, falsely reporting that the 9-year old girl, raped earlier this year by her step-father and pregnant with twins, had been excommunicated.

The Archbishop of this Northeastern Brazilian region explained that, contrary to the press reports, all those involved in the abortion have incurred in excommunication latae sententiae (automatically) “except for the little girl, who is not morally responsible for this tragic act.”

The girl was required to have the twins aborted on Thursday at a hospital in Recife, Brazil.

The Catholic Church teaches that a person who commits a sin of grave matter must be fully conscious, or in this case, have a mature understanding of the act they are committing. Archbishop Cardoso said that “in order to incur an excommunication, it is required to have a full conscience of the act. In this sense, the Church is benevolent with the minors and the victims of abortion.”

“All those who approved, promoted and performed the abortion, incurred automatic excommunication, according to code 1398 of the Canon Law.”

The case has drawn widespread attention since abortion is illegal, except under specific circumstances, and because Brazil is the world’s most heavily Catholic country.

“The Church usually does not announce or publicly that that is the case, but it was important for me to do it on this occasion,” Cardoso said.

“My hope is that those affected by the excommunication they brought upon themselves may change their hearts and may not wait until the proximity of death to repent,” he concluded.

[Bent_Bladi]

disgusting and sad