(no subject)

[rivka]

Sometime soon, I'm going to post something cheerful. Not this time.

Through riarambles' journal, I've been following the story of a nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl who was raped by an adult man. She became pregnant, and was also infected with two STDs which were left untreated because of potential harm to the fetus, while the government tried to decide whether she should be permitted to have an abortion. The Catholic Church in Nicaragua urged that the child - who is young enough that when she was asked whether she wanted to have a baby she talked about not wanting to share her toys with another child - be forced to continue her pregnancy.

The governmental medical board assigned to review the case ruled that the child was in as much medical danger from an abortion as she would be if she carried to term. Doctors volunteered to do the procedure even with this ambiguous level of legal support (they're now being threatened with prosecution), and she tolerated the procedure well. She's now being treated for her infections. She and her family are on the road to healing...

Except that her parents, her physicians, and all of their supporters have been promptly excommunicated by the Catholic Church. Or, as a church spokesman, guided by a God of love and mercy, prefers to say, they excommunicated themselves.

If you are Catholic, you have the opportunity to volunteer to share in the sentence of excommunication by declaring yourself to be one of the child's supporters. As for myself, I'll be praying that healing and peace be granted to the child and her family - and that a spirit of compassion be granted to the church officials standing against them.

Comments

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Okay, before I reply to this, let me say very clearly that I think the Church's stance on this is Very Wrong, and I admire the doctors who were willing to risk possible criminal sanctions and excommunication to carry out the procedure. However, I feel I have to point out that they have revealed themselves to value dogma more than people only works as a statement for people who accept the view - as you presumably do - that the foetus is not a person. The bishop might think that you are putting your dogma (the belief that the foetus is not a person) over people (the foetus, which he does consider to be a person).

I personally also think of the foetus as a person (I have no particular argument for that, it just fits best with my own intuition, particularly during my own pregnancies), so I think of the problem in terms of conflicting rights, and my beliefs about how such conflicts should be resolved say that the girl's rights take priority.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

You did assume right - I do not view fetuses as people. Perhaps a clearer statement would be to say that the Catholic officials in this case have revealed themselves to value Catholic dogma over the emotional/spiritual needs of their flock - I think it WOULD be fair to say that a 9 year old girl and her parents stands a better chance of having a religious faith than a fetus, and that their church has let them down, to say the least.

I do agree that the doctors were quite brave to face criminal sanctions to carry out the girl's abortion, but I find it hard to fear being excommunicated. But as I said before - the Catholic Church can't send the Inquisition after you anymore, and as I am not deeply religious, being kicked out of a religion doesn't present much of a dilemma for me.

As I have said before though I cannot imagine what this poor family is going through.