Brazil rape victim flap leads to new Vatican condemnation

I pray for that aborted child and her unfortunate mother. Why do people chhose death as a remedy for life's problems, when 6 or 9 months later the pressing concern is resolved. Pray for all concerned...

I just wonder if the Vatican really gets it? People have to deal with the complexities of life and moral prohibitions need to take that into account.
The Vatican spokesperson does not speak about the mother and doctors who were put in an invidious position of making a decision about the young girl's fate and that of the baby she was carrying. Theirs was an adult, mature decision that necessarily took morality out of the abstract into concrete reality. To do otherwise, and defer to an ideal beyond their cicumstance, seems to me the least mature decision, making the ideal in this case one of less value.
Secondly, the closing paragraph seems to offer a Vatican approved way of getting around the moral prohibition on abortion. But that reminds me of the time when Catholic women, who in not wanting or not able to safely have more babies, would have their wombs removed because they couldn't use artificial contraception.

Sooooo.....I'm still confused. The goal of this abortion was to save the life of the young girl, who was innocent of any sin, it was the adult man who devastated this little girl. WHY is there not more outrage by the Church officials over what he did? And, WHY were the little girl, the doctors, the mother, etc. excommunicated when the "outcome" was to save the little girl's life? Why not put that last sentence of the official statement at the beginning, rather than as an "add on"?

(No, I'm not pro-choice.)

50 years ago at Georgetown University Nursing School I was taught the ethical principle of Double Victimization as we considered the problem of severe eclampsia with the possibility of having to perform an abortion to save the mother's life...in my almost 30 years of work in a sexual assault treatment center I had many many occasions to consider this principle in the process of attending child victims of sexual abuse...and I can assure Snowdrop that the "pressing problem" of a pregnant child is never "resolved" with the birth of her child. The problems only multiply--socially, physically and ,yes, spiritually. Most of all, consider the trauma suffered by the inmature mother's body, spirit and soul through a pregnancy and delivery. It is never a healthy or positive experience. These all-too-common situations demand a serious reconsideration of the
Church's traditional position. Jesus never made this mistake. He always considered the suffering person first.

My confusion comes in the fact that the same aboslute stringent application about the sanctity of life ceases to be so stringent and absolutist after the baby takes it's first breath.

Why does a fetus have such a right to life that it supercedes that of an equally innocent nine year old girl?

The Church expels people trying to help traumatized children, and does so in the service of an abract moral ideal ? That's moral leadership ? to demonstrate that the moral ideal applies in every situation, regardless of the collateral moral devastation it causes ? We Catholics, in trying to be true to our faith, look to the Church's leadership on difficult questions. It is not leadership to consider all problems simple because there is only one solution. We don't need leadership to follow rules. We need it to understand what to do when to follow the rules is wrong, too.

"In this regard, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirms that the doctrine of the church on procured abortion has not and cannot change," the statement said.
Actually the Church's position on abortion was pretty much the same for 1800 years, and that was abortion was only a venial sin in the first few months. Both Sts. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas held this view, with abortion only being a more serious sin if it was performed to cover up adultery.

In 1869 the current complete ban was instituted. What happened about that time to cause such a radical shift? Perhaps it was the rise of the Suffragette movement in the United States and the Declaration of Sentiments, including the following paragraph:
"He allows her in church, as well as state, but a subordinate position, claiming apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the church."

We can't have women taking responsibility for their own actions, now, can we? Good heavens -- what will the church come to?

Well -- we see now what the church has come to without women. Perhpas it is time to include them.

It's high time the Vatican and the church hierarchy was condemned for their unhuman dogmas and decrees and especially for their hurtful and evil implementation.

My friend & I were both in our late 20s, healthy middle class college educated young women, going through first pregnancies together.
I was 5' 4", about 130 lbs before & gained nearly 50 lb during pregnancy, before safely delivering a full term 9 lb baby.
My friend was about 5'8" or so, nearly 150-160 lb before, gained ~ 65- 70 lb & delivered 2 healthy twins ~ 5-1/2 lb each, only a couple of weeks early. She also spent most of the last 3 months in bed rest...

All kinds of books explaining the basics of good maternal & fetal health care for any medically inexperienced new parents-to-be are available in any public library.

Now with what logic or common sense does anyone expect a pre-adolescent, poor, young girl, under 70 lb, with no history of supportive health care during her life so far, to gain up to about 100% of her pre-pregnancy body weight during the pregnancy of twins & still be healthy enough to deliver living babies near full term???

We have a 9 yr. old child pregnant by rape with twins. This is a third grader who weighs under 70 pounds. What would Jesus tell us? The Father gave us a brain to use; the Son gave us a heart to know love; and the Sprit gave us the wisdom to decide. Who with a brain, heart, and wisdom wouldn't do what the parents, doctors, and little girl chose! To declare otherwise is both insane and un-Christian. May God forgive the Vatican and its bureaucrats!

The teaching on abortion is absolute. The circumstances in no way affect it.
Which is very much against the Thomistic tradition in which I was trained.

Dear A. Boulanger, how is it 'very much against the Thomisitic tradition in which (you) were trained." Please explain more as I do not understand and I would appreciate very much more information regarding your ideas about this.

I am constantly amazed at the opinions offered by the Vatican, bishops and other clergy. The idea that a young child is guilty of anything but abuse is assinine. The lack of compassion, charity and pity seems to be the rule of the church. They have ceased to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ or to teach accordingly. The rules in their books are more important than the abusive life of a little girl. Shame on them!

I am not Roman Catholic. I am a practicing Christian. The heirarchy's (lack of) response to the clergy sex scandals left me speechless and feeling ashamed for Christians everywhere. The Vatican's response to this present situation in Brazil is mind-numbing, beyond morally obtuse. The Congregation's response along with that of the Brazilian heirarchy is itself evil. God bless the physicians and attendants who relieved this poor young child of her criminally imposed pregnancy.