When a 9-year-old girl in Brazil was recently found to be pregnant with twins, doctors performed an abortion. In Brazil, the procedure is legal only in cases of rape or to save the mother's life, and doctors determined that both applied to the girl -- her stepfather was jailed on rape charges, and the 80-pound child was too physically immature to carry twins to term.
In response to this tragedy, a Brazilian archbishop pronounced the doctors and the girl's mother excommunicated from the Catholic Church, a decree met with incredulity around the world. Further fueling the outrage, the head of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops added that the "real problem" was abortion, not the endangered life of the girl. Just days later, en route to AIDS-ravaged Africa, Pope Benedict XVI openly doubted the efficacy of condoms in halting HIV transmission. In both cases, it seemed that church policy trumped not only effective public health measures but compassion.
In Brazil, the church's actions suggested that the suffering of a young girl was of little concern compared with consistency on abortion. And ultimately, Rome acknowledged that the episode was badly handled. Writing in L'Osservatore Romano, Archbishop Rino Fisichella said the excommunications, which by church law are incurred automatically when abortion is procured or performed by adults, did not have to be blared to the world. Instead, the child "should have been defended, hugged and held tenderly to help her feel that we were all on her side."
