I know that the abortion debate has been done to death here, but am wondering - for those of you who said over and over that abortion is never acceptable, do you still feel that way given this case in Brazil.



Articles here and here. The Church says that it will be excommunicating all those responsible for the abortion.

My own opinion - I guess that it is difficult not knowing how she feels - though what 9 year old would truly want to go through pregnancy, especially when that pregnancy is the result of abuse - and there is little enough information in the articles I can find. I'm pro-choice anyway, but I'd consider it a greater 'crime' to see this child forced to carry a pregnancy to term, given the risk that pregnancy poses to her both physically and, I would imagine, psychologically. I would generally say that the Church has the right to its opinion, but its stance here strikes me as so very, very wrong on all fronts.

So what are your thoughts? It goes without saying that this is a reprehensible crime against a child, and it would be nice if this didn't degenerate into a pro life vs. pro choice debate. I really just want to know what people think in this, or any other similar case. Particularly if your general stance is one of pro-life.

I personally am pro-choice, but I believe that even if I wasn't my opinion on this would still be the same.
Sexual abuse like that is not, and never is, a child's choice. Did she want to be raped? Of course not. Because of this fact, the pregnancy was not her fault in any way. So yes, I would see this as a crime against her if she would have been legally obligated to carry the babies full term.
That being said, this is much different from teens and preteens who are sexually active and did not conceive their child from being sexually abused. They did it, and whether or not they understood the risk, it can't be undone.
Even the most mentally and physically healthy of 9 year olds (which this young girl was most likely not seeing as her stepfather had abused her at such a horrible level) are not ready for the responsibility of children, let alone twins. Even if they chose to have the baby adopted, it would still put a lot of stress on the mother having to carry them full term. And can you imagine the mental and physical effect of having to go through labor and childbirth at that age?
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that the right decision was made in having the fetuses aborted. The poor girl has already gone through so much, why make her suffer the burden of pregnancy, childbirth, and possibly raising the twins at her young age?

The physical stresses of carrying one baby - much less two - on a healthy, adult woman are immense. I can't imagine how much worse it would be for a girl of her age. While she must have gone through puberty enough to be able to conceive, I can't imagine her pelvis would have widened enough for childbirth - meaning she'd have to undergo major surgery to extract the babies in the first place. Assuming she (or the babies) even survived the pregnancy at all.

I don't know how anyone could protest her having an abortion - the trauma of a rape is bad enough, but being forced to go through a potentially life-threatening pregnancy and give birth to two babies who she had no choice in creating and had no choice but to carry would seem like it would be unbearable. How could any loving god favor the lives of a couple clusters of cells over the life and health of a fully-formed and traumatized little girl?

I can't believe - ok, I don't want to believe - that anyone could have an issue with this girl, in this situation, having an abortion. I don't understand how rape is "God's will".

See, normally the church would accept abortion in the case of a serious risk to the mother (after all, you have two choices - the death of the baby, or the mother).

But you have to remember there are twins, and so the church is doing the sums and sees that the death of one human life is better than the death of two human lives. Simple.

(there may also be a distinction between letting the girl die, and actively killing the foetuses).

Unbelievable the actions of any religious groups just never cease to amaze me.

I also don't want to believe that anyone would have an issue with this CHILD having an abortion after being RAPED. But we all know this world is a screwed up place.

This whole one life vs. two is an empty argument. It pretty much goes without saying that had this pregnancy gone through there would not have been ANY lives left to discuss. A NINE year olds body is nowhere near ready to carry ONE child let alone TWO.

As for someone being able to refer to choosing between lives as simple sickens me and makes me mad beyond belief.

I am not the whole pro-choice deal I believe that you make your own bed lie in it. However,there will ALWAYS be circumstances where an abortion is acceptable or when it should be allowed and this is one of them. This little girl did not choose to have sex with her STEP-FATHER which means she did not enter into it knowing there was a possibiltiy she would end up pregnant. She didn't have a CHOICE.

While I was being facetious in saying what I said about the church (i.e. that it was a simple matter of utilitarianism), I must say that choosing between lives is a fact of life. But that's another debate, I feel.

I'm not sure what the problem is. The church may approve or disapprove of this, and be very vocal about it, but they do not make the law. I would have been really worried if the judges woud not have approved the abortion, and forced them to go to another country to have it.

I am 100% pro-life, but this is prolly the one exception I would ever make in my stance. I feel terrible...what must that little girl have gone through? I hope her step-father will get major jail time.

I too am also pro-life. But there is exceptions. While it's sad to have the murder of two babies (Yes I said murder, not abortion. That is how i see it.) a nine year old is in no way capable of delivering babies safely. Sometimes, or a lot actually, the Catholic Church disappoints me.

It's common sense that the safest way to go around this situation is for the girl to get an abortion. Not all of us Catholic's are really conservative, by the book, Christians.But that's also for another debate.

Opinion summed up, let the girl have an abortion. Jesus wouldn't have excommunicated her so why does the church feel like they have too? :hmm:

I can't see how anyone would feel the need to put a child through giving birth. It's sickening to see this happening, but I am really happy that she got the abortion.

I also respect the Church in a way. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely hate them for trying to make the girl keep the baby, but they seem to be the only pro-lifers who don't see any exceptions. I don't understand how there can be if you're using the argument 'It's a life!'. A life is a life, regardless of how it came to be conceived. If you're making exceptions then you're mainly punishing the pregnant woman for having sex to begin with. I really don't get that. 'Tis confusing.
(Not meaning to cause a debate either btw, I'm too tired to debate. )

But anyway, this is a sad story. I hope the step father gets what he deserves.

Performing an abortion wasn't simply the most rational course of action in this scenario- it was the right thing to do. No woman should be forced to carry the physical manifestation of a traumatic rape for nine months, much less a nine-year-old carrying the manifestation of a semi-incestual rape. The child is not an incubator, and it is cruel to penalize her simply because she endeavors to preserve her life- one that she has hardly begun to live.

Even if this girl in question had consentually chosen to have sex and then received an abortion, I would still advocate that it was the right decision- a nine-year-old's body is in no way physically prepared to undergo a pregnancy, and the child's emotional and financial responsibilities to the baby could not be fulfilled. At the risk of beating a dead horse, sex can be a mistake, and no woman should have to become a mother if she doesn't want to. If the mother didn't want the child in the first place, what sort of childhood will that baby have? This situation is a prime example of why abortion should be legalized.

Sorry to say it (and I went to a Catholic school, and I respect other people's vies, so I'm not trying to be offensive), but the Chruch is being as selfish as hell.

I get that Catholics respect foetal life as entirely human, but come on, it's cruel to force a nine year old girl to endure a pregnancy that neither her body nor her mind was designed to cope with. What about human rights and the ability to decide whether one has to undergo a pregnancy or not?

I'm a 100% pro-choice, but even if I wasn't, this is entirely ridiculous, and nothing short of human cruelty, which is quite funny given that quite a few Catholics protest against animal cruelty.

Either way, I'm glad the Catholic Chruch doesn't govern the law.

Don't believe abortion is ok, unless both mother and the baby will die in the case.

I don't know how to put my feelings on abortion in this case, but...
Why are we debating the issue of the abortion and completely discarding the fact that she was raped, not only as a child, but by her step-father?

Thanks for the input so far guys. I was hoping that Davious or another who shared a staunch pro-life view in earlier abortion threads would have shared a view point here.

I don't think anybody has discarded that fact, it's just that there's nothing to debate there. (Unless we start a new topic on how such people should be punished?) It's an almost unthinkable crime against a child and I'd imagine that that poor little girl will suffer the rest of her life because of it. The debate topic is as it is because I was interested to know whether people who feel that abortion is wrong ALL the time would still apply that view to cases such as this one.

I'm VERY happy with the comments here. I'm brazilian and I was following the case trough web and I see A LOT of comments only saying "Abortion is a crime under God's eyes and even in the law, etc..." Lot of people really think that the girl should just have had her babies and let them to adoption. It's like "Uh-oh, it's a woman (no matter age), it's made to carry babies!!".

Noone thinks about the rape when say this.

I'm sorry, I was just seeing about this again today for coincidence, and then when I enter here I see this topic at the top. I'm still pretty nervous!

It has been said that it would have been traumatizing for the nine-year-old to carry full term, but what about the trauma of under going an abortion? Grown women agonize over the decision and then even after it is traumatizing, for the woman, sometimes for years. I am pro-life except on occasions like this one. Rape victims should be allowed to abort. But for a nine-year-old, can you imagine how scared she would be to have a procedure like an abortion to be done?

But then again, could she carry two babies to a point in gestation that they would be viable? One I could see, but I am unsure about two, since twins are generally born premature.

The youngest mother ever recorded was a five-year-old who was raped by her father. She carried full term and delivered by a c-section. The parents raised the child as her brother. The little boy did not find out that the "sister" he had known all his life was actually his mother, until after she had died.

So it is possible that she could have carried one.

I'm not the target audience for this debate by far. However.

If you really do have an anti-abortion stance, then I don't think it's morally consistent to make an exception for rape. A life is a life is a life, and if you reject abortion because it's taking a life, then I don't see what the circumstances of conception have to do with it.

Now, of course, that's not the way most pro-lifers feel. And I'm glad you manage to have compassion for a nine-year-old rape victim. But why not other women, too?

Um, I'm not an expert on either procedure, but it seems to me that the necessary C-section (and, you know, the being a mother part after that) would be at least just as painful and traumatizing as an abortion.

Because a nine-year hasn't even reached a point where they are mentally capable to fully understand the situation. Rape is bad, to every age of woman (and men; Being PC here) the gravity of the crime is the same. But a woman who is in her twenties is much more mature.

Besides, other women do get compassion. It's just a child is more likely to get compassion, it's pretty much our instinct as humans.

Never was too keen on the idea of abortion, and never will. But this one situation kinda has some justification as to why she did undergo abortion. I mean, 9-year old raped by her stepfather then got pregnant with twins? Don't get me wrong, I respect the Church, but at times like these, I think that if that little girl didn't undergo abortion, not only two lives, but three--including the nine-year old-- would be lost in the process of laboring.

I find it disgusting that she was raped by her stepfather. Sad truth is, this kind of stuff is still prevailing in most parts of the world. And stuff like this makes it a hopeless case.

Yes, but don't you forget she was under some anesthesics, it was done in a good hospital, so it isn't so 'dramatic' as it look as. It would be much worse if she was doing it in some 'clinics' we have here.

(Bit off: By the way, in one of my classes I knew a girl who had a close friend ((I knew that girl too O_O)) who had 19 abortions. YES, 19. Insane!!!! I doubt she'll ever have a baby, even if she wants D:!!! A rich girl does anything she wants... )


Yes, but depends of the body we're talking about. The doctors said this 9 years old had high risks, so...

Poor little girl. I can't imagine how hard it must of been for her knowing she was pregnant, but the church is being really out of order toward the situation. If she doesn't get the abortion- she will die and both of the babies will die.
The step-father of the girl deserves a slap so hard his head will drop off. Getting a little nine-year old girl pregnant- endangering her life is sick sick sick. He should be jailed for at least 30 years.

It could be worse. At least Catholic extremists don't demand the girl be put to death for adultery as Islamic militants likely would.

The poor thing, having to go through something as traumatising as rape, and finding out she is pregnant to twins!

Usually, I would disagree with abortion, except in this case. She is nine years old, and she wouldn't be able to carry twins, let alone give birth and take care of them. I am glad she was allowed to get the abortion, but the stepfather is not getting what he deserves. I want to see worse charges put in place, not just a jail sentence.

I didn't even know the Islam did that. Catholic extremists may be a bit pissed at what the girl did, but I dare them to excommunicate that girl for trying to save her own life.