Archbishop Migliore's recent UN speech is indicative of why many NGO's think the Vatican needs to have it's mike turned off--permanently.Catholic pro-life leader demands protection for abused, pregnant girls
The chairwoman of Alliance for the Family, Christine de Marcellus de Vollmer, denounced the media push to decriminalize abortion in Latin America by using the tragic cases of young, pregnant sexual abuse victims. She then called on politicians to adequately protect and show solidarity with such girls and their unborn children.
Speaking with CNA, de Vollmer referred to two specific cases: one of a 10-year-old girl who was raped in Recife, Brazil, and a similar case in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, one of the 18 Mexican states that has enshrined protection of the unborn into law.
Christine de Vollmer began by explaining the need to "powerfully raise our voices so that people do not fall prey to this malicious information. We are obviously in the midst of a campaign to legalize ‘therapeutic abortion’ in cases where the life of the mother is ‘at risk.’ We know that this step always leads to the legalization of all abortions."
She explained that the “girls are not the primary concern of promoters” of therapeutic abortion. “It is obvious that their priority is the legalization of abortion.” For evidence to back her claims, de Vollmer said, “a clear sign of this pro-abortion priority” can be found in Recife and Quintana Roo, two places that have been “recent battlegrounds in the fight to legalize abortion, and its promoters want to clear the path by using these extreme cases.”
De Vollmer said it is necessary to provide adequate explanations in order to confront the fallacies of the abortion lobbyists and feminists that are being promoted by the media (even by some Catholic media). (Parentheses are CNA's little editorial addition--Media bashing being the in thing at the moment. I'm not bitching, just observing because I do it all the time. But then I don't claim to be media outlet. Now I' bitching.)
She noted that the first explanation has to do with the term “rape.” “We here in Latin America know well that we are not dealing with rape (in these cases), but rather with something worse and more common—and which perhaps we don’t want to face—which is this tragic promiscuity.”
(No, what you don't want to face is the culture of 'machismo' so you call this promiscuity, essentially blaming the girls' mother and leaving the male out of it.)
De Vollmer said that in these situations, “everybody lives in the same little house and sleeps in the same bed. And of course all kinds of things happen there, unfortunately including to children. As the bodies of these little girls are stimulated, they begin to ovulate and become pregnant at some point. It is not 'rape.' In fact, it's something much worse and more endemic."
The second fallacy of the feminists is the use of the word, “stepfathers.”
“They aren’t stepfathers. They are simply men who live in the home with the mother and her daughters, oftentimes for just circumstantial reasons, without any serious commitment,” she underscored.
De Vollmer also told CNA, “We need to look at the entire social reality of the abuse of so many little girls. We must not fall into the ‘false compassion’ and reductive reasoning of the promoters of abortion. They want us to pay attention to the little girl only when she is already pregnant in order to give her what they are selling: abortion.” (No they want her mother to have the right to control her own reproductive choices so sex isn't forced on her daughters.)
“It would be more objective, engaging, and caring to prevent or correct the very common situations of promiscuity and danger of so many young girls before its too late,” she added.
This problem “exists not only in Quintana Roo and Recife. This abuse will not be stopped by legalizing abortion. On the contrary, it will increase because among other things, the visible consequences (of abuse) will be taken away,” De Vollmer said.
“The suffering of these girls and their unborn babies is a call to solidarity,” she continued. “They need special psychological and medical care and perhaps the option to give these children up in adoption.”
“We must expose this and clarify that these conditions must be addressed by politicians and the Church, rather than only paying attention when the girl gets pregnant,” she underscored.
“Politicians must not rend their garments over these pregnancies when they turn a blind eye to the abuse that goes on daily. If they do nothing to stop this abuse, it can only end in pregnancy,” she said.
“This is not ‘a medical opinion’ or a ‘medical case’,” de Vollmer stressed. “It is an eminently social and humanitarian issue, and humanity cannot save itself by killing its weakest members.”
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This is a pretty interesting argument Mrs. Vollmer has going here. First and foremost it seems to me she is doing a great deal of verbal semantics to avoid using the words, 'rape', 'incest' and 'protect the girl's life'. It is not step fathers, it is opportunistic men. It's not rape, it's promiscuity due to close quarters. Combating these pregnancies is not about the very real danger to the lives of ten year old children, it's about giving mothers special care and more options for adoption.
Therapeutic abortions then are just a 'commodity' abortion interests are selling. It has nothing to do with a real medical diagnosis. Kind of like tacos.
And of course, there is no mention of the very real poverty and over population this is all a product of, and certainly no mention of sex education, female empowerment or God forbid, birth control.
I will say this much though, it is refreshing to hear at least one Catholic pro life voice that understands we need to address some real life issues besides the legal prohibition of abortion. Not surprisingly this voice is female. Because our male leadership was in front of the UN saying this:
Vatican diplomat: Plunging birthrates are part of economic crisis
April 15, 2010 - Catholic World News.
April 15, 2010 - Catholic World News.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, told a UN commission on April 12 that the world’s nations need to confront the problem of plunging birthrates in order to help solve the international financial crisis.
“As this Commission on Population and Development convenes in the midst of an ongoing economic and financial crisis, we would do well to listen to a growing opinion among economists that demographic trends are part of the problem and cannot be overlooked as an important part of the solution,” he said. (Like with Cardinal Bertone, we are not told who these experts are. For all I know they could be white eugenics proponents.)
“The demographic crisis that in a few decades has brought down annual population growth rates from 7% to below 1% in many parts of the world, in tandem with the aging of the population, has resulted in devastating effects for the economy and governance.” (Maybe using Pope Benedict's gay logic, we should get rid of the idea of marriage with all it's benefits for non procreative old people. Apparently they are a threat to world peace.)
“The correction of the population deficit with constant immigration does not seem to resolve the problems even in the short term,” he continued. “The same demographic policies that caused population growth rates to plunge to unsustainable levels need to be reviewed and redesigned along with appropriate social policies to encourage births. (What areas of the world is he referencing?)
Noting that two million women suffer from obstetric fistulae and that 800,000 people die annually from malaria, Archbishop Migliore also called for a greater attention to prenatal and childhood health care. (Hooray, another call for health care for women and children. Of course, it only comes after a call for women to get with it and get pregnant.)
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I have spent a great deal of time lately on the clerical abuse crisis and our gutless or corrupt male leadership, but the real truth is, Catholicism as we currently experience it does the bulk of it's human damage to women and children.
It is this constantly repeated drum beat of pro creation and pregnancy at all costs that harms the most people. It's the root cause for the situations described by Christine Vollmer. It's the prevalence of the cheap labor markets excessive population promotes that keeps the wheels of western economic interests running. It's the lack of education in these populations that keeps guys like Migliore in their finery and it's their wealthy supporters whose pockets are lined by this poverty. We know that about Latin America too.
We also know, when the other side of the Church talks about these issues and their root causes, they are hung out to dry by the Migliore's of the Church and sometimes assassinated by the supporters of the Migliore's.
And it's the male Migliore's of the Catholic world who keep the female Vollmer's of the Catholic world from uttering the birth control words.
