We were all pretty shocked to hear the story about the 9-year-old Brazilian girl, who, after years of being raped by her stepfather, wound up pregnant with his twins. Adding insult to injury, the Catholic Church has decided to excommunicate the little girl's mother and the doctors who performed the abortion, "God’s law is above any human law," said regional archbishop, José Cardoso Sobrinho.
Although abortion is illegal in Brazil, exceptions can be made if the pregnancy poses a grave threat to the mother's or baby's life. Since the girl is only 9-years-old and weighs a mere 80 pounds, doctors felt that she would be unable to carry the baby to full term safely. One of the doctors involved, Rivaldo Albuquerque, told a Brazilian TV station that he intended to keep going to Mass, regardless of the archbishop’s order.
The Vatican defended the regional archbishop's decision saying, "It is a sad case but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons, who had the right to live and could not be eliminated."
The stepfather who sexually abused the little girl for over 4 years has not been excommunicated. The church has stated that the sexual acts he forced upon the little girl and her mentally disabled older sister are not as bad as ending the life of an unborn child. "It is clear that he committed a very serious sin, but worse than this is the abortion," Sobrinho declared.
