Sometimes there are no words
Then again, I can think of a few words to use about this story: a 9-year-old rape victim was harassed by the Brazilian Roman Catholic Church over aborting the twins she was carrying. She eventually found a doctor brave enough to give her the abortion, but not without a lot of fuss and bother.
Here’s what the doctor had to say about her continuing the pregnancy:
Fatima Maia, director of the public university hospital where the abortion was performed, said the pregnancy, which was in its 15th week, posed a serious risk to the girl, who weighs 80 pounds.
And here’s what the archdiocese of two regions in northeastern Brazil had to say:
But Marcio Miranda, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in northeastern Brazil, said the girl should have carried the twins to term and had a Caesarean section. “It’s the law of God: Do not kill,” he said in comments reported by the newspaper O Globo.
The rape victim and her doctor have both been formally excommunicated by the church.
I should say that there are many people whom I love dearly who are religious. I have enormous respect for them, which they have earned from me over the years. I have no respect for a religion that places more value on a group of cells that cannot survive outside their human host than that of a 9 year old rape victim whose life would really be endangered by continuing a pregnancy that resulted from her rape. None. At all. I also have no respect for anyone who would condone the statement and actions of the Church in this instance – or in any instance where they have caused irreparable harm to a child. I would also prefer not to get into a discussion about one needing religion to be a moral human being. Not today, thank you.
I’m not sure if thanks is the right word, but thanks anyway to Pharyngula for the story yesterday. I was too pissed off to write about it immediately.
UPDATE: Apparently everyone involved (except the child and apparently the rapist) have been formally excommunicated by the Brazilian Catholic Church. Very classy.
That just makes me sick. The poor kid who went through all that. I’m glad she was able to get the abortion, but as an ex-catholic I know she’ll probably feel regret and/or be told by family that she shouldn’t have had it done, which is really sad. The stark black and white that the catholic church sees for everything makes my head spin.
Oh, I know. It’s bad enough, what happens to women who’ve been raped in our society, without more sh*t being heaped on them in the name of “love”. I hope that she’ll be okay, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
This is where the catholic Church gives me the royal heebiejeebies. Was it God’s law that she got raped?
The hierarchy of the Church of the pedophile needs castrating. Isn’t this the church that doesn’t have any women priests, bishops, cardinals or popes?
I would love to see the day when the have ‘Her Holiness Pope Margaret 1st’
It seems like something that a priest would say. “It was God’s will, and God would want you to carry the children.”
Castration of any kind, physical or hormonal, would be the right punishment in my mind, but I don’t see that happening. I just hope her stepfather never gets to go near her again. The cynic in me doesn’t see that happening, either. He won’t be spending much time in jail, I’d guess. Ugh.
You know, now that I think about it, there was a Pope Joan. I kind of wish she was real…
Man’s inhumanity to man knows no bounds.
Stories like this just upset me so every time. I think people couldn’t sink any lower, and yet they always do.
This is why I refer to myself as a recovering Catholic. Doesn’t the Bible also talk about not persecuting the innocent? I could be w2rong. But this girl is an innocent victim all around. I doubt the girl or the babies would have survived anyway.
The only good that would come out of this is if the stepfather is jailed for a long time, until the girl grows up and can get away. But I wouldn’t count on it.