I'm speechless.

[DocBot]

Horrible, horrible organisation.

I'll just copy pharyngula:

Brazil girl, alleged rape victim, aborts twins
"The procedure on the 9-year-old girl draws complaints from Catholic church"

...

 

[PsiSoldier]

Rather vague article there. Just to be clear of the subject, which part of this is it you're speechless about?

 

[KillCrazy]

It's kind of obvious. The catholic church saying she should have carried the twins despite the serious health risks to a NINE year old girl.

 

[BiG D]

Yes, you're right. Murder is a much better option.

 

[Zooggy]

Ahey,

It is, actually, in this particular case.

Or at least, most modern value systems condone the act of killing in self-defense.

I'm not a doctor, but a nine-year-old pregnant girl is quite probably at risk of significant bodily harm and permanent damage...

Cheers,
J.

 

[Huung]

I'm not religious, so there's no morality issue for me with abortion, I believe it should be the choice of the potential parents.

In this case I agree with Zooggy, in that it is more self defence than anything. Having a single foetus inside her at that age and size would be dangerous, let alone twins - who's life is worth more?

It really does sadden me when cases like this appear, and yet people still defend religion and claim it isnt barbaric and outdated. Religious texts are less like "codes", and more like "guidelines" IMO...

 

[DocBot]

This is actually not ambiguous in that sense, as it sometimes is (if you agree with the idea that abortina 15 week old fetus is murder, of course) - succesfully carrying twins to term is almost certainly impossible for a 80 pound nine year old. Either the twins, her, or all of them would almost certainly die.

 

[Bradstreet]

The doctors who carried out the procedure said that she was so small her uterus could not have safely carried one baby to term, let alone two. And now the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife is suggesting that everyone who assisted in this procedure (read: saved this child's life and gave her some chance to recover from this unimaginable trauma) should be excommunicated.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7926694.stm

 

[Angelic]

In this case, yes, abortion was the right decision and the Church's position is barbaric and undefendable.

 

[Zaggu]

Barbaric is a euphemism, considering the circumstances. Ever since Ratzinger took over, the catholic church seems to have thrown away whatever lefttovers of Christianism's ideals of respect and tolerance they still had.

 

[Silk]

Yes, you're right. Murder is a much better option.

So every time a guy t0sses off, is he murdering thousands of unborn children?

They had a right to try to swim to fertility! You horrific fiends!


In this case the poor little girl was raped, so even if it hadn't been a health risk that would most likely kill her (and the twins) she's quite within her right to have an abortion.

 

[BiG D]

So every time a guy t0sses off, is he murdering thousands of unborn children?

They had a right to try to swim to fertility! You horrific fiends!

I said nothing of the sort. Nice Straw Man, though.

You guys are all missing the point I'm trying to make here. It's incredible how close-minded everyone gets when the abortion issue comes up. There's an organization that says "we don't condone murder under any circumstances." That sounds reasonable enough. But instead of a reasonable discussion, all I'm seeing here is aggression and name calling. Really guys? Who's being barbaric now?

 

[Nanor]

I'd be keen to hear the Vatican's position on this.

 

[DocBot]

There's an organization that says "we don't condone murder under any circumstances." That sounds reasonable enough.

that's what I was answering in my reply - my point is, it could quite reasonably be construed (under the aforementioned premise re: definition of murder) as murder anyway, what with there being a high likelyhood of three deaths instead of two if the abortion was not carried through.

[mod]and, yes, any debate re abortion can quite quickly get inflamed, especially since it's rather closely tied to religious belief. So I'll just take this opportunity to kindly ask everyone to be polite, thankyouverymuch. [/mod]

 

[Zooggy]

Ahey,

There's an organization that says "we don't condone murder under any circumstances." That sounds reasonable enough.

Not really. It's an extremist position, which carries with it its own fallacy flaws. After all, justifiable homicide is part of the legal system of most civilized countries.

That makes the whole murder issue irrelevant to the point of whether that particular abortion was legitiamate or not. To explain:

If abortion is murder, then, in this case, it was justifiable homicide.

If abortion is not murder, then, in this case, it was certainly within the girl's rights, as a(n alleged) rape victim.​

Either way, it was clean.

And I concur, the Brazillian Catholic Church's public reaction was reactive and sensationalistic. Given the subject matter, yes, that makes it barbaric, in my opinion.

Cheers,
J.

 

[BiG D]

Not really. It's an extremist position, which carries with it its own fallacy flaws. After all, justifiable homicide is part of the legal system of most civilized countries.

That makes the whole murder issue irrelevant to the point of whether that particular abortion was legitiamate or not. To explain:

If abortion is murder, then, in this case, it was justifiable homicide.​

Firstly, that belief fits no definition of the word 'extremist' that I'm aware of. I'm aware it's a flawed position, but that doesn't make it any more wrong than all the other flawed positions.

And yes, the country's legal system allows for this. But the moral issues aren't magically resolved just because something is 'legal'. It was 'clean' according to the law, nothing more.

I was going to come up with a hypothetical situation where you need to take the lives of two children to save one that may be in danger, but it would've been quite stupid.

Simply: if there was a situation where there was an older child and two babies who might die, would it be right to kill one or both of the babies to save the older child? Why?​

 

[KillCrazy]

Simply: if there was a situation where there was an older child and two babies who might die, would it be right to kill one or both of the babies to save the older child? Why?

The mother's health is at risk. The twins lives are at risk. During child birth, the mother may die, the twins may die. All three of them may die. The twins may be born with severe health problems and have a very low quality of life.

In my oppinion the abortion was the right thing to do. It is a very sensitive matter but you really have to take all the risks in to account, and there are a lot in this case. Murder should not even come in to it.

 

[midgert]

I will have no words with anyone who says this is murder.

 

[BiG D]

In my oppinion the abortion was the right thing to do. It is a very sensitive matter but you really have to take all the risks in to account, and there are a lot in this case.

That's more like it. It's an incredibly complex situation, and there's no right answer, at least for the people involved.

 

[Bradstreet]

If we are going to bring emotive words like murder into play, it is my view that if the pregnancy had been allowed to continue, and the girl and both babies had died, the Catholic church would have their blood on its hands.

I am pro-choice because I believe women are more than biological instruments for the reproduction of the species. The girl is too young to be fully self-determining or able to make choices of this magnitude. She has already had the right to control what she does with her body, and who she does it with, taken away from her -- by her own father. When the church insists that she carries the babies as far towards term as is possible it is equally taking away her rights in her own body, and making her an object: this time a reproductive rather than a sexual one. Arguably the doctors too are intervening, and in an invasive fashion; that is because she is too young to make these decisions for herself. However, the doctor's choice is one that allows her to live, and to become fully self-determining in future, and for that reason -- I believe -- it is the right decision.