Vatican: Brazilian girl, docs need mercy after abortion

Submitted on March 18, 2009

Carol Glatz

A 9-year-old Brazilian girl and the doctors who performed the girlVATICAN CITY (CNS) — A 9-year-old Brazilian girl and the doctors who performed the girl’s abortion of twins needed the Catholic Church’s care and concern, not its condemnation, said a leading Vatican official. Doctors at a hospital in Recife, Brazil, performed the abortion March 4 on the girl, who weighed a little more than 66 pounds and reportedly had been raped repeatedly by her stepfather from the time she was 6 years old. Abortion in Brazil is illegal except in cases of rape or if the mother’s life is in danger. After the abortion, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho of Olinda and Recife declared the excommunication of the girl’s mother and the doctors who performed the abortion. He said it was "a crime in the eyes of the Church" and that human laws can never override the laws of God. Archbishop Cardoso told a Brazilian newspaper that, while it was true the child ran health risks if she continued the pregnancy, "the end does not justify the means. The good aim of saving her life cannot justify the killing of two other lives." The Church officials’ statements puzzled Brazilian Catholics and were criticized in the media. Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life at the Vatican, criticized what he called a "hasty" public declaration of the excommunication of the girl’s mother and the doctors who aborted the girl’s twins. According to canon law, anyone who procures a completed abortion incurs an automatic excommunication, meaning there is no need for an official decree from Church authorities.