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Todays winner of the Boot to the Head is ..

Started by HairyHeretic, March 05, 2009, 06:19:36 PM

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HairyHeretic

.... The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7926694.stm

QuoteA Brazilian archbishop says all those who helped a child rape victim secure an abortion are to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The girl, aged nine, who lives in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco, became pregnant with twins.

It is alleged that she had been sexually assaulted over a number of years by her stepfather.

The excommunication applies to the child's mother and the doctors involved in the procedure.

The pregnancy was terminated on Wednesday.

Abortion is only permitted in Brazil in cases of rape and where the mother's life is at risk and doctors say the girl's case met both these conditions.

Police believe that the girl at the centre of the case had been sexually abused by her step-father since she was six years old.

The fact that she was pregnant with twins was only discovered after she was taken to hospital in Pernambuco complaining of stomach pains.

Her stepfather was arrested last week, allegedly as he tried to escape to another region of the country.

He is also suspected of abusing the girl's physically handicapped older sister who is now 14.


The Catholic Church tried to intervene to prevent the abortion going ahead but the procedure was carried out on Wednesday.

Now a Church spokesman says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated.

The Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, told Brazil's TV Globo that the law of God was above any human law.

He said the excommunication would not apply to the child because of her age, but would affect all those who ensured the abortion was carried out.

However, doctors at the hospital said they had to take account of the welfare of the girl, and that she was so small that her uterus did not have the ability to contain one child let alone two.

While the action of the Church in opposing an abortion for a young rape victim is not unprecedented, it has attracted criticism from women's rights groups in Brazil.

I read elsewhere that the church wanted the 9 year old to carry the pregnancy to term, then have a cesarean.
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Mnemaxa

I'm sure their deity would have preferred the death of all three of them.

/bitter sarcasm.

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Inkidu

...sad. I feel bad for her twins too. Put into a position where they don't get a chance to live. I understand why she needs the abortion but it doesn't make it any easier, but her stepfather is a real son of a bitch. Ruined God knows how many lives.
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Zakharra

 The church needs to lighten up. I'd tell the archbisop where to stuff it. The CHurch isn't the one that lets a person into Heaven, but god himself.

Bayushi

Quote from: Zakharra on March 05, 2009, 08:40:30 PMThe church needs to lighten up. I'd tell the archbisop where to stuff it. The CHurch isn't the one that lets a person into Heaven, but god himself.

THIS is why I chose to live agnostically. Organized Religion can often destroy as many lives as they claim to "save".

I do not like Abortion, but in the case of rape, incest, and/or where the mother's life is at risk, it is warranted. This case falls into two of the above.

The Overlord

Quote from: Bayushi on March 05, 2009, 09:21:34 PM
THIS is why I chose to live agnostically. Organized Religion can often destroy as many lives as they claim to "save".


Bingo...and save is a relative term.

Oniya

Quote from: Bayushi on March 05, 2009, 09:21:34 PM
I do not like Abortion, but in the case of rape, incest, and/or where the mother's life is at risk, it is warranted. This case falls into two of the above.

Erm - all three.  I doubt that the nine-year-old consented, sex with a step-daughter still counts as incest, and the girl's uterus was 'too small to carry one, much less two.'  Personally, I'm in favor of responsible pregnancy choices, which was one of my first conflicts with Catholicism.
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Inkidu

Quote from: The Overlord on March 05, 2009, 09:28:56 PM
Bingo...and save is a relative term.
Not in the case of Christianity. It's very explicit on what it takes to be saved. John 3:16

The Church for all it's hooting an hollering can't stop you for talking to God. I don't believe in the church.
As Frederick Douglass but it, "There is a difference in the Christianity of the Land and the Christianity of Christ."
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HairyHeretic

Quote from: Inkidu on March 05, 2009, 08:18:22 PM
...sad. I feel bad for her twins too. Put into a position where they don't get a chance to live.

They weren't going to anyway.

QuoteHowever, doctors at the hospital said they had to take account of the welfare of the girl, and that she was so small that her uterus did not have the ability to contain one child let alone two.

The child in question wasn't physically capable of this, let alone anything else.
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#9
Quote from: Bayushi on March 05, 2009, 09:21:34 PM
I do not like Abortion, but in the case of rape, incest, and/or where the mother's life is at risk, it is warranted. This case falls into two of the above.

Exactly.  This is what I have to explain to my staunchly pro-life friends.  I identify myself as Catholic, but honestly, it's stuff like this that makes me consider converting to another denomination.  I am against abortion in 99 cases out of 100, but in sinstances like Bayushi said, abortion is often the only way to preserve any life at all.  Biology doesn't lie.  If her body couldn't handle the pregnancy, then you're putting both the mother and the children at risk.  By getting an abortion performed, you save the life of the mother, who then has the chance to grow older, mature, and have children later on.  Punishing her for events she had no control over is disgusting.

Quote from: Inkidu on March 05, 2009, 10:30:51 PM
As Frederick Douglass but it, "There is a difference in the Christianity of the Land and the Christianity of Christ."

... 'Nuff said, really.  There's a big difference between the Church as an earthly organization and the Church as a group of people who all believe in the same transcendent being.  Any reasonable Christian would at least have had a twinge of conscience with this situation.  Anyone who would immediately condemn her to go through with the gestation and birth when she is clearly in no condition to do so isn't the voice of God... instead he reminds me more of the other guy.
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snow

1. let me take the step dad out back for about 15min and beet him in to the dirt

2 abortion, not only in this case but less pressing ones as well, at least i think, is fine, it is THERE kid and if they dont want it then there are steps they can take.

3. to each there own, if there are gods out there, may they watch over this girl
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i do not understand what i do...it is no longer I myself who dose it, but it is evil living in me...for what i do not the good i want to do; no, the evil i do not want to do---this i keep on doing...i fined this law at work when i see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the laws of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of evil, i my self in my mind am a slave to goods laws, but in the evil nature a slave to the laws of evil

Korbl

Quote from: Bayushi on March 05, 2009, 09:21:34 PM
THIS is why I chose to live agnostically. Organized Religion can often destroy as many lives as they claim to "save".

I do not like Abortion, but in the case of rape, incest, and/or where the mother's life is at risk, it is warranted. This case falls into two of the above.
as many? I'd say it destroys more lives than it claims to save.

And if the question ever arrises for me, I place my physical well being far, far above my spiritual well being, and I'll thank doctors to do so as well.
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"God and religion are not synonymous. God is, for the faithful at least, the sovereign creator of all creation. Religion is what men and women put in place, ostensibly to worship and serve Him. Too often, though, religion worships and serves that which has nothing to do with Him, worships money and serves politics, worships charisma and serves ego, worships intolerance and serves self."

I don't think faith is something you can be excommunicated from, and think excommunication from a church is just a political tool some organizations use to keep its members in line.
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OldSchoolGamer

This case just goes to show that church leaders are capable of the same arrogant venality as CEOs, judges and politicians, making their edicts and rulings from on high, heedless as to the impact their decisions have on common people and the working class.

Usually, a level of disconnect this profound presages the downfall of the authority structure in question...

The Dark Raven

I was born in 1980, 10 weeks early, in a Catholic hospital.  The sisters actually told my father that if it came down to saving me or my mother's life...they would let my mother die.

I have issues with Catholicism...heh.

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Nessy

Strange that it would be their choice and not your father's who would have the actual authority in the matter.
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Kurzyk

Fortunately there are many Catholics who don't follow or believe in the more conservative elements of the faith. It's too bad that the media focuses so much on the negative or radical aspects of a religion.

I guess it just makes good news.

Trieste

... I personally enjoy asking why conservatives/pro-lifers prefer 73rd-trimester abortion in Iraq, as opposed to just getting it over with in the 2nd trimester.

(The 73rd trimester would be 18 years + 3 months, for those of you too lazy to do the math.)

Quote from: Avi on March 06, 2009, 12:06:55 PM
Punishing her for events she had no control over is disgusting.

They're not.

Quote
He said the excommunication would not apply to the child because of her age, but would affect all those who ensured the abortion was carried out.

This whole thing boils down to a relativistic view of whose life is more important. Yes, a terrible thing happened to those girls (the mother and her sister) but whose life is worth more? The 9-year-old who had an abortion? Or the twins who were aborted? Two lives given to save one.

Yes, the little girl had no control over what happened, but neither did her unborn twins. If you believe the twins were discrete life forms worthy of consideration - which the Catholic Church does - then you would be looking at murdering twin children. By Catholic dogma, it's better to leave the pregnancy in the hands of God (with the assistance of modern medicine, yes, but still in God's hands) and let the girl carry to term as best as she can than to deliberately kill two unborn children. The people responsible for the abortion violated a commandment and committed a mortal sin.

The church has every right to excommunicate them; the case was clearly against Catholic edict.

jouzinka

I don't think a girl so small would carry twins long enough for their survival and she'd either miscarry or she would die as they grew in her womb. This way or that, the twins were doomed anyway. IMHO
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Trieste

I don't disagree with you. It's medically insane to do such a thing...

... but it makes religious sense.

jouzinka

True. Though, forgive me for saying so, but any religion never made a lick of sense to me. Faith? Sure, but that's completely different thing.
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Oniya

Quote from: Trieste on March 25, 2009, 10:10:54 AM
I don't disagree with you. It's medically insane to do such a thing...

... but it makes religious sense.

Actually, it should change the 'cold equation' that the Church seems to be using.  If she were 'allowed' to carry until the inevitable, it's very likely that they would be dealing with the death of three people, not just the twins.
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And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
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Trieste

And then you would be dealing with the question of whether it was God's will or something else or what ... which is a religious question...

Tch. Don't look at me; I left my last organised religion at the age of ~12. I was mad at them because I was told that they don't allow people with vaginas to become elders, ever never. Without exception. I was pissed.

Zakharra

Quote from: Trieste on March 25, 2009, 10:23:10 AM
And then you would be dealing with the question of whether it was God's will or something else or what ... which is a religious question...

Tch. Don't look at me; I left my last organised religion at the age of ~12. I was mad at them because I was told that they don't allow people with vaginas to become elders, ever never. Without exception. I was pissed.

The Catholic Church the organization for men in dresses.  ;)

Oniya

Quote from: Trieste on March 25, 2009, 10:23:10 AM
And then you would be dealing with the question of whether it was God's will or something else or what ... which is a religious question...

Tch. Don't look at me; I left my last organised religion at the age of ~12. I was mad at them because I was told that they don't allow people with vaginas to become elders, ever never. Without exception. I was pissed.

Point.  The only reason I lasted as long as I did (stopped going regularly when I went to college, made it final when I moved out of the house) was a lack of alternative options.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17