Appalling.
Everything about this story is appalling. It’s bad enough that a poor Brazilian girl was raped repeatedly for two years by her stepfather, but the what a local archbishop did next and the Vatican’s backing of his actions is made this story gain international attention, because it’s equally appalling. When the child, now nine, became pregnant with twins, the mother finally took the child away from the step-father, and doctors performed an abortion to end the girls’ pregnancy. In retaliation, the busybody archbishop excommunicated the mother and every doctor involved in the abortion, but failed to excommunicate the step-father, because “the crime he is alleged to have committed, although deplorable, was not as bad as ending a fetus’s life.”
As I said, appalling. And I say this as someone who calls myself pro-life. The miscarriage of justice here is so apparent that I detect some reluctance to comment on this story by some more ardent pro-life quarters.
Some Catholic defenders of the decision hem and haw a bit, and try to describe excommunication as something other than the theological death sentence that it has been portrayed to be. Unfortunately, they are missing the point. So, the Brazilian archbishop stepped forward to excommunicate the child’s mother for arranging to have an abortion, as well as the doctors who carried the abortion out. Short of sending the Inquisition out to force these doctors to recant, this is the strongest condemnation that the archbishop can give. The abortion, it should be noted, was completely legal under Brazil’s strict anti-abortion laws because these laws make the exception that allows abortions to take place when the mother’s life is at risk, and the conception occurred as a result of rape. Both exceptions clearly apply given that the potential mother is a nine-year-old girl.
What would the archbishop have had the mother and the doctors do? Nothing? Allow the young girl carry the twins to term, despite the clear risk to her life, despite the clear psychological trauma that the conception represents? Was it better that the girl die so that her incestuously conceived twins could live?
In my opinion, a true pro-life stance is to cherish all life, and not to try not to place the value of one living human being over another. As much as the abortion of the twins may have been a tragedy, the archbishop’s decision has every appearance of valuing the life of the nine-year-old girl less than the twins she was forced to conceive — less even than the rapist who forced her to conceive these twins. I cannot comprehend the thinking that went into the decision to excommunicate the child’s mother or her doctors, nor can I understand those who try to defend the archbishop’s decision. Thankfully, this hardline attitude attitude is not one shared by most (if any) Catholics I know.
That this Church, which opposes the death penalty for murderers (a stance I support) is willing to allow a child to risk death rather than end her inhumane pregnancy, strikes me as a grave abomination. Failing to acknowledge that the doctors involved in the abortion were intent on saving the child’s life, failing even to condemn the rapist’s actions in equally strong terms for putting the girl’s life at risk, strikes me as an attitude that is well outside the realm of pro-life thought. It makes no logical sense, it makes no theological sense. The Catholics who defend this decision, in my view, have not only lost all connection with reality, they have lost their connection with the concept of God’s love.
It is for this reason that the Catholic church is losing touch with its rational members in this modern world, and why its relevance in daily life is diminishing by the hour.
A Quick Haiku
It’s not often that a single event spotted while driving writes itself up as a haiku, but that happened today. Here goes:
Boy in a neck brace
Riding the handlebars of his bike.
March 17, 2009 7:43 AM
I’m not a Catholic (or even a Christian for that matter), but I’m going to be a devil’s advocate for a moment. Consider your statement “a true pro-life stance is to cherish all life, and not to try not to place the value of one living human being over another.”
Is not aborting the twin girls the putting the life of the mother over that of the two twins?
The two scenarios (from the Catholic perspective) are (1) two lives end, but the mother is saved psychological trauma and possible physical harm; and (2) two lives are spared, but the mother is subjected to enormous anguish and psychological trauma and possibly physical harm.
The Archbishop chose to condemn those that brought about the scenario that resulted in more lives being ended (2 lives instead of just one) and the scenario where more severe harm (death) was certain over the one where less harm was possible (possibly just psychological harm).
Perhaps the Archbishop should have condemned the father more than just calling his actions “deplorable” (I have no idea what is theologically possible or appropriate, so I can’t really judge whether this was the right response—it certainly strikes me as pretty light). However, on the count of whether murders (as that is how Catholics presumably see abortion) should be treated as worse than rape, I think even the Canadian Criminal Code punishes murder much more severely than rape. As odios as the facts of this case are, I think the Archbishop’s actions are defensible on strict analysis.
Finally, on the issue of the mother’s live being at risk, I suspect that the Archbishop’s argument is probably that an abortion should be committed once it is more clear that the mother’s life is at risk, for example, once we can see a downward trend in the mother’s health. Right now, the mother might manage to maintain good physical health through the pregnancy (as many slim women do; women as young as 9 would regularly bear children until very recent in human history), or she might suffer deteriorating health. If your goal is to prevent death (as I assume the Archbishop’s goal was), then you probably want to have a high degree of certainty that death is very likely before ending other lives to save one life.
Taking off my devil’s advocate hat, I am personally the first to agree that it is impossible for the Church to condemn physicians for a medical decision when medical assessments are the province of physicians and not the Church. At the very least, I think the process here (as I understand it) is insufficient to my sense of fairness: I think the Church should be conducting a thorough investigation, interviewing the physicians involved etc. to assess the full story in detail. A media report and some quick follow-up (which is what I assumed happened) seems insufficient.
As well, there is a very complex moral trade-off that the Church should acknowledging. While I’ve presented the case for why the abortion was worse than the rape, the other way to look at this is that an innocent young girl is to suffer psychological harm while a guilty rapist got a slap on the wrist. I think the reason it is so hard to accept this ruling is because while the Church followed the book in making condemnations, the end result doesn’t seem just to us. Part of this is certainly an issue of politics and optics, but there is a substantive issue of justice underlying that I would like to see the Church acknowledge even if they feel that it is outside of their theological role to address (once again, I have no idea what is the theology of Catholics in this situation). In a complex case such as this, I think everyone would be more accepting if the Church showed that they too see the complexity and empathize with the other side of the issue.
On that note though, I think we need to recognize the complexity here and understand the issue from the other side. That’s my reason for presenting the devil’s advocate case. Pro-life and pro-choice issues are often very difficult in real life, unlike on paper. If we rush to condemn rather than acknowledge that both sides have an argument, I think we fail to build a dialogue wherein we might find ways to partly address other sides of these issues rather than totally ignore the legitimate concerns of opposing sides.
March 17, 2009 1:13 PM
A 9 year old is not a “woman”. She is a child. The fact that she was physically able to conceive in the first place is a bit of a freak of nature (as shouldn’t be menstruating yet; though while I am aware it can happen in one so young, it is usually not even remotely regular or in any way, shape, or form a sign of the body’s ability to carry a fetus to full-term. Take a look at what happens to the poor young girls in Africa (I believe the correct terminology is a fistula) for further info as to the strain on a body when children conceive).
The man (I will not use the term “father” as it is an injustice to the excellent dads out there, and clearly this man is not a father but a pedophile) should be jailed for the rest of his life. Period. Preferably in a place where the inmates have more sense than the jailers and will ensure he is provided with the same treatment he dished out. The mother while in the end did the right thing, should also be heavily condemned, as what mother can blindly sit by while her baby is victimized?
And when a child/woman is ever raped - and as a result conceives - there should not even be a question in anyone’s mind that she can have an abortion if desired. The point of copulation is not to experience God - it is to pass on one’s genetic material. While I do believe children are gifts from God, I also firmly belive that God is not present at rapes - so He wasn’t present at the conception, and I am sure He is not judging the decision of the doctors/nurses/mother/child in the least. If He is, then I am sorely mistaken as to the point of Heaven. I am also sorely mistaken as to God’s omnipotence and power if one truly believes that He is not capable of handling the judgment of the girl Himself.
By the church punishing the doctors/mother/child, all they are doing is proving how God is not present when it comes to religion - especially the clearly patriarchal religions with rules dictated by men.
Ick.
And for the record - I do attend church regularly, I do believe in Heaven and God, but I don’t for one second mix up those beliefs with common-sense or the ability to understand the differences between mans interpretation of the “rules” and God’s true intent.
March 18, 2009 7:10 AM
Sorry to interrupt, but I have to serve notice that you have been Fickied.
http://www.stageleft.info/2009/03/14/who-are-we-the-birth-of-the-ficki/#comment-142112