Pro Life Or Absolute Insanity?

Brazil Church condemns abortion of twins
Published: March 06, 2009--The Australian

The Brazilian Church has announced the excommunication of those responsible for an abortion carried out on a nine year girl who had been pregnant with twins after allegedly being raped by her stepfather.

Local Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, said the Church was excommunicating all those responsible for the abortion: the medical team and the girl's mother, The Australian reports.
"God's law is above any human law. So when a human law ... is contrary to God's law, this human law has no value,'' Archbishop Cardoso told the news television network Globo.

"The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion, will be excommunicated," said the archbishop for the Recife region.

The case has sparked off fierce debate in Brazil, where abortion is illegal except in cases of rape or if the woman's health is in danger.

The girl, who was not identified because she is a minor, was last week found to be four months' pregnant after being taken to hospital suffering stomach pains.

Officials said she told them she had suffered sexual abuse by her stepfather since the age of six.
He was arrested a week ago and is being kept in protective custody. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.

The website of Globo reported that another girl, aged 11, was being looked after in a hospital in southern Brazil after being found to be seven months' pregnant following alleged sexual abuse at the hands of her adoptive father.

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In Brazil, abortion is illegal except in circumstances in which the mother's life is threatened or the fetus is judged non viable, or forcible rape. In this case the nine year old girl presented with all three exceptions. At 80 lbs and nine years of age her medical advisers determined her uterus was too small to carry one baby to full term, much less two. Of course, this doesn't matter to the Catholic Church as legal is not necessarily moral. As the Archbishop says, "God's law is above any human law."

So here we have a case where a nine year old girl is impregnated by her step father. While he sits in jail, the archbishop excommunicates the girl's medical team and her mother. Secular law imprisons the perpetrator while ecclesial law excommunicates the girl's support system.

Most of the commentary I have read about this story is furious with the Church not excommunicating the girl's step father. The truth is the step father has not engaged in an excommunicable offense. In fact, raping his step daughter is actually seen as a more moral sexual act than having sex with his wife if they were using birth control. Raping his nine year old step daughter is a sexual act open to procreation. According to the Church, God's law favors rape over birth control. God's law is sure tough on women and nine year old girls.

What did the Archbishop expect a competent medical team to do in this case? Let this child bring two dead babies into the world at the imminent threat to her own life. Would three potential deaths then satisfy the Archbishop and by extension God? Did he really expect that the professional medical community would allow this girl to potentially die, and certainly suffer, so they could save their own souls? Is this really the bottom line in Catholicism? Save your own soul at the expense of any reasonable expression of compassion? The Archbishop's use of excommunication certainly seems to say so.

This morning I watched a speech given by the historical theologian Karen Armstrong in which she makes the case that all the great spiritual traditions base their core teaching in the Golden Rule. Confucius actually stated this rule 5000 years before Christ. Armstrong maintained that real religion is about compassion and practicing compassion. It's in the practice of compassion that religious people find a relationship with God. When religions place doctrinal belief ahead of compassion, they cease to function as meaningful contributors to the collective good and become sectarian and divisive. They also excommunicate professional medical people who are exercising ethical compassion and mother's who care about their children.

This lack of meaningful compassion as played out in the pro life debate is becoming more and more obvious. In many cases Catholics who are pro choice ground that decision in compassion, not obstinate disobedience to Papal authority. This seems to be a distinction that is lost on pro lifers. It's a distinction that needs to be acknowledged if Catholicism is going to appear as anything other than a sectarian religion on a rampage against secular culture.

Compassion needs to be extended beyond the fetus and include the mother, just as accountability for abortion must extend beyond the mother and include the father. Rape is not about the decision of a nine year old girl. Her circumstances were dictated by the perverted sexuality of her step father. He is the causal agent, and as such should be excommunicated. In the secular world this makes perfect sense, but in the convoluted world of Catholic moral theology the step father is the more moral agent. This is only possible when absolutism trumps compassion. When adherence to doctrine supersedes human decency. What a sorry state of affairs.