This story is dated 2010, but illustrates the difficulty of looking at everything in black and white. What would you have done if you were the doctor? Are the priorities of the Catholic church what they should be? Remember, Brazil is still primarily Catholic although the church is in decline there.
Brazil is being rocked by a controversy pitting "God's Law" against the state's and the opinion of much of the nation. It all started in the state of Pernambuco when a 9-year old girl was admitted to a hospital complaining of stomach pains.
Doctors quickly determined that the child, a victim of rape, was pregnant with twins and that her undeveloped uterus did not have the ability to contain one fetus, let alone two. They prescribed an abortion in order to save the little girl's life. That's when the Catholic Church stepped in... to try and prevent the abortion.
Brazil, abortion is legal only in cases where rape is involved but Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, told the country's Globo TV that God's Law was above all human law and that anyone involved in or aiding the abortion would be subject to excommunication from the Church.
On Wednesday, March 4th, the procedure was carried out in a hospital in Recife. Archbishop Sobrinho then excommunicated the doctor who performed the procedure, the medical team who assisted him and the girl's mother who gave permission for it. The little girl (whose name has been withheld for her own protection) was not excommunicated.
"The church is benevolent when it comes to minors," Archbishop Sobrinho told Globo TV.
The child's stepfather, who allegedly has been raping the girl since she was 6 and is also suspected of abusing her physically handicapped 14-year old sister, was arrested as he attempted to flee for parts unknown. He has not, however, been excommunicated and Sobrinho told Globo TV that "A graver act than (rape) is abortion, to eliminate an innocent life."
The case has outraged the Brazilian public with even the nation's leaders weighing in.
"As a Christian and a Catholic, I find it deeply lamentable that a bishop of the Catholic Church has such a conservative attitude," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Globo TV.
CNN reports that
Dr. Olimpio Moraes, one of the doctors involved in the procedure, said he thanked the archbishop for his excommunication because the controversy sheds light on Brazil's restrictive abortion laws. He said women in Brazil's countryside are victimized by Brazil's ban on abortion.
And in the same story,
A new report by Brazil's IPAS, a non-governmental organization that works with the health ministry, indicates that more than 1 million women undergo illegal abortions in Brazil each year. About 250,000 are treated by doctors for traumas due to botched abortions, said Beatriz Jalli, an IPAS official.
Studies at a Brazilian hospital dedicated to treating female victims of violence, the Perola Byington in Sao Paulo, indicated that more than 40 percent of the cases involved children.
"This is why the Recife case is so important for women in Brazil," Jalli said.
Brazil is being rocked by a controversy pitting "God's Law" against the state's and the opinion of much of the nation. It all started in the state of Pernambuco when a 9-year old girl was admitted to a hospital complaining of stomach pains.
Doctors quickly determined that the child, a victim of rape, was pregnant with twins and that her undeveloped uterus did not have the ability to contain one fetus, let alone two. They prescribed an abortion in order to save the little girl's life. That's when the Catholic Church stepped in... to try and prevent the abortion.
Brazil, abortion is legal only in cases where rape is involved but Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, told the country's Globo TV that God's Law was above all human law and that anyone involved in or aiding the abortion would be subject to excommunication from the Church.
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| Recife, Brazil |
The child's stepfather, who allegedly has been raping the girl since she was 6 and is also suspected of abusing her physically handicapped 14-year old sister, was arrested as he attempted to flee for parts unknown. He has not, however, been excommunicated and Sobrinho told Globo TV that "A graver act than (rape) is abortion, to eliminate an innocent life."
The case has outraged the Brazilian public with even the nation's leaders weighing in.
"As a Christian and a Catholic, I find it deeply lamentable that a bishop of the Catholic Church has such a conservative attitude," President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Globo TV.
CNN reports that
Dr. Olimpio Moraes, one of the doctors involved in the procedure, said he thanked the archbishop for his excommunication because the controversy sheds light on Brazil's restrictive abortion laws. He said women in Brazil's countryside are victimized by Brazil's ban on abortion.
And in the same story,
A new report by Brazil's IPAS, a non-governmental organization that works with the health ministry, indicates that more than 1 million women undergo illegal abortions in Brazil each year. About 250,000 are treated by doctors for traumas due to botched abortions, said Beatriz Jalli, an IPAS official.
Studies at a Brazilian hospital dedicated to treating female victims of violence, the Perola Byington in Sao Paulo, indicated that more than 40 percent of the cases involved children.
"This is why the Recife case is so important for women in Brazil," Jalli said.
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