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Catholic church complains that nine-year-old rape victim has abortion

Brazil girl, alleged rape victim, aborts twins
The procedure on the 9-year-old girl draws complaints from Catholic church

RIO DE JANEIRO - A 9-year-old girl who was carrying twins, allegedly after being raped by her stepfather, underwent an abortion Wednesday despite complaints from Brazil's Roman Catholic church.

Police said the stepfather has been jailed since last week.

Abortion is illegal in Brazil, but judges can make exceptions if the mother's life is in danger or the fetus has no chance of survival.

Fatima Maia, director of the public university hospital where the abortion was performed, said the 15-week-old pregnancy posed a serious risk to the 80-pound girl.

"She is very small. Her uterus doesn't have the ability to hold one, let alone two children," Maia told the Jornal do Brasil newspaper.

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 cesarean section.

"It's the law of God: Do not kill. We consider this murder," Miranda said in comments reported by O Globo.

Calls to Miranda were not immediately returned.

Brazil is home to more Catholics than any other nation.

Tags: Abortion, brazil, catholic, incest, rape

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by ɟǝןıx dǝʇɹɐɹ on March 8, 2009 at 11:13pm

Dear Dallas, here is the thing: she didn't embrace Catholicism, she was embraced by it. She didn't become Catholic at the age of mature thinking but her mind was virused from an early age. It is a big thing to be able to free your mind and an event like this (an excomunication) can make her open her eyes. It is possible that she will give a sh... about her excomunication after a while.

Permalink Reply by Dallas (on hiatus) on March 9, 2009 at 5:39pm

Well Felix, you may be right about the outcome. But I was embraced by Christianity too, and yet I rejected it at a very early age. I don't consider myself special. So why did I reject it and she embraced it, when it is clearly so flawed?

Permalink Reply by ɟǝןıx dǝʇɹɐɹ on March 9, 2009 at 8:28pm

I don't know Dallas, some people are more affraid than others. The church promote as a virtue the believing without thinking and you have to have the courage to sin a little bit and think for yourself.

I was a passive atheist in my childhood, then I was some kind of weak Christian as a teenager and I tried to make sense of that thing, saying that everything in the bible is symbolical and it should be some wisdom behind it. Then, studying it, I noticed the discrepancies which made me saying in my mind louder and louder that I am not a Christian and I was in contact with people of other religions but I didn't answer in my mind to the God existence question. Then I read an interview with Peter Gilmore and I heard Dawkins at TED "An atheist's call to arms " and I realized that I have to wake up and stop with this bullshit. Then I realized how religion poisons someone's life and how good it is without it in my life.
Women tend to be more obedient and follow the rules and this is reflected even in the fact that they are more religious than men.
Why did you reject it and she embraced it? Because people are different (and you know very well this Dallas). I guess you were helped by your sexual orientation to see the bullshit in Christianity so you also had something which helped you. Before probably she was never put in enough difficulty by the Catholic church to ask herself this question "is christianity a bullshit?"

Permalink Reply by David Ivester on March 8, 2009 at 6:31pm

This is a good example of how religious beliefs can so skew one's ethical perspective that an otherwise mentally sound, normal person (which I presume the bishop to be) could perceive the girl (i.e., the victim of rape) and her mother and her doctor (i.e., the girl's rescuers) to be guilty of a terrible crime worthy of excommunication and see the stepfather (i.e., the child abuser and rapist) as guilty only of some lesser misdeed. As Steven Weinberg put it: "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Permalink Reply by ɟǝןıx dǝʇɹɐɹ on March 8, 2009 at 8:45pm

hm, maybe the stepfather was even virtuous: Genesis 1:28 "Be fruitful, and multiply". He was doing God's will after all.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on April 1, 2011 at 6:51am

Christian spambot go away.

Permalink Reply by The Secular One on April 1, 2011 at 7:03am

And spambot reported.

Permalink Reply by Prog Rock Girl on March 21, 2011 at 8:55am

Anyone who says that being pro life means putting the rights of the mother and the fetus equally? Point to this article. Women have no rights under pro-life ideology.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on March 31, 2011 at 9:35pm

Doesn't your heart just break when you learn of such ignorant tyranny? Some people wonder why atheists, such as myself, are not only a-theist, some are anti-theist. I bear witness to the outrageous teachings of some misguided fools who would limit contraception, family planning and abortion. In this case, this dear child should be held in tender care and provided the remedies best for her. Why should she have to sacrifice herself if, as some believe, Christ sacrificed for her?

We all know of such obscenities. I long for the day when individuals, and families, and churches, and communities, care compassionately for each other.

Permalink Reply by Gina H on April 1, 2011 at 5:54pm