Posted on 08/30/2006 3:19:02 PM PDT by Stone Mountain
Cardinal Warns About Colombia Abortion
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A leading cardinal said the Vatican will excommunicate the doctors who performed Colombia's first legal abortion on an 11-year old girl who allegedly was raped by her stepfather.
Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family, made the announcement in an interview with RCN television Tuesday.
''Every Christian Catholic who submits to an abortion, whether it be directly or indirectly, will be excommunicated,'' Lopez said.
It was not immediately clear if he also was referring to the girl and her family.
[... cut to excerpt]
The secretary of Colombia's Episcopal Conference, Monsignor Fabian Marulanda, said he doubted that the Vatican would take the formal steps of excommunicating the doctors, but that the doctors should consider themselves excommunicated until they submit to penance.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Are you for real? Did that statement come from someone who talks about "useless eaters" in their tagline? Is this some kind of sick joke?
No, he's just speaking the simple truth.
If you don't care about innocent children being killed, you're not civilized.
This girl is an innocent human being, too. She did ask to be raped, and she did not consent to conceive and carry a child. This is a rare case, and one where her rights trump those of the unborn child, IMO.
did ask=did NOT ask
"This is a rare case, and one where her rights trump those of the unborn child, IMO."
What is the source of her right to kill an innocent human being?
How can anyone possibly have the right to kill an innocent human being?
In this case, the law of her country is the source of her right.
"and she did not consent to conceive and carry a child."
Well, you know, that's one of those places where life just sucks a rock. Doesn't matter if a woman consents to conceive. Once she does, there's another human being involved, and that human being has an absolute right not to be killed.
With respect to moral or religious law, I note that not every religion prohibits abortion in all circumstances. I understand that the Catholic Church takes this position, but I'm not Catholic. In any event, I'm not interested in engaging in a debate regarding theology.
"In this case, the law of her country is the source of her right."
No wonder America is foundering.
The reason that America is the best country ever conceived is that it put into practice the principle that our rights do not come from government, but from God. We are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights, and government has no rightful power to interfere with the exercise thereof.
Government has no rightful power to confer upon one person the right to kill another, innocent person.
If you are depending on government for your right to slaughter innocent babies, you rely on fiction.
There is not, and can never be, a right to kill innocent people.
So by your logic, if continuing a pregancy would likely be fatal to a woman, she should be forced to do so anyway?
"Bull.
God had nothing to do with the act of the bastard who raped her. You want to put the cart before the horse."
I honestly don't know WTF the above quote means or how it pertains.
In any event:
God created a mechanisim for the creation of life and He calls all Life Sacred. Life is not rendered un-sacred by a heinous act.
What I always love about this hard case is the assumption that an abortion is the best thing for the 11 year-old. Notice that nobody ever seems terribly concerned about what she wants or how she feels about it. To a degree, that's reasonable since an 11 year-old's consent either way is questionable but the assumption that she's best off aborting the baby is not necessarily true. If she grows up and considers abortion murder, she will have to live her life knowing that people murdered her child. If she grows up and considers abortion a right and wasn't allowed to have one, she'll resent those who forced her to have a child she didn't want. Which of those options is ultimately worse for her psyche? And don't think that women don't regret abortions they are pushed through by friends, relatives, and other adults when they are young.
A raped 11 year old girl should not be condemned to be the incubating machine of her rapist.
Absolutely. And if she grows up for any reason thinking that abortion is murder or wanting the child she was carrying, two crimes will have been committed upon this 11 year-old child.
As I said in a previous post, I think this a rare case where an abortion is justified. You focus on your opposition to all abortions without one word regarding the welfare of the 11 year old child who was impregnated by rape. Does she not matter?
In cases like these, the 11 year-old can't reliably consent either way, and that's the problem. It's easy to assume that she's better of having the abortion but she can't consent to that, either. Consider if, instead of accepting the choice that was made for her, she decided that she wanted the child she was carrying and considers the baby's abortion the murder of her child. What kind of crime would that be against her, compared to the hardshiop of forcing her to carry a child she doesn't want?
Kill the stepfather! Save the baby!
"You focus on your opposition to all abortions without one word regarding the welfare of the 11 year old child who was impregnated by rape."
Others are carrying that banner quite adequately without my joining in.
"Does she not matter?"
Of course she does. Now, who speaks for the innocent baby that was brutally killed, or the next innocent baby that will be brutally killed?
A terrible thing happened to that girl, but you can't right it by killing her baby.
Besides, it doesn't matter whether you can right it or not, because nobody has any right to kill an innocent baby. Ever. Period.
She doesn't face excommunication.
FYI:
Can. 1323 The following are not subject to a penalty when they have violated a law or precept:1/ a person who has not yet completed the sixteenth year of age;
You're right. The ability--or lack thereof--of an 11 year old to consent is a big problem. But I am much more comfortable with that decision being made by her parents than by someone who doesn't know her and just wants to impose their ideology on her.
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