Saturday, April 4, 2009

Abortion row shakes Brazil opinion

By Gary Duffy
BBC News, Brazil

The issue of abortion in Brazil has been making headlines not just in South America's biggest country, but around the world.

The controversy began when news emerged from Pernambuco, a poor state in the north-east of Brazil, that a nine-year-old girl who had been raped was pregnant with twins.

It is alleged that she had been sexually abused for years by her stepfather, who is also suspected of sexually assaulting an older disabled sister. He is now in prison.

Public interest in the case soared when the local Catholic archbishop tried to block the girl from having an abortion.

Brazilian law allows abortion only if there is a risk to the life of the mother or in cases of rape. Doctors said the girl met both those conditions, and said she was so small her uterus was not big enough to carry one baby, never mind two.

Opponents of abortion say the girl could have safely had a Caesarean section.

In the end the abortion went ahead and the local archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, said all those adults involved - the mother and the medical team - had been excommunicated


The archbishop later insisted it was not he who was ordering the excommunication, but that he had been simply restating the teachings of the Church.

His statement attracted widespread condemnation, led by Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who said as a "Christian and a Catholic" he deeply regretted the bishop's conservative attitude.

Archbishop Sobrinho then added to the storm of protest by saying that while the stepfather had allegedly carried out a "heinous act", excommunication did not automatically apply to him.

The controversy then spread to Rome where it appears to have provoked a surprising divergence of opinion at the highest levels.

Unforeseen consequences

One senior Vatican official appeared to back the Brazilian archbishop and then another to sharply contradict him.

It seems, however, the controversy may have led to other consequences in Brazil that Archbishop Sobrinho did not foresee, and which almost certainly he would not have welcomed.

Those who would like see a more liberal law on abortion say the fact that the Brazilian state - from the president down - rallied so firmly to the side of the doctors involved in this case will give renewed courage to their medical colleagues across the country.

Even in circumstances where abortion is legal, it seems doctors here have proceeded nervously, fearful some say of a negative reaction from the media or the Roman Catholic Church

-----------------------

Read more here..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7978696.stm

-------------------

If the same news against abortion would have come from some muslim family , the media would have used every possible word to blame it on ISLAM.

------------------