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: the last refuge of the persecuted crack smoker

is this what passes for "respecting life" nowadays?

By "Nicolle"

the catholic church keeps admonishing people to respect life. sometimes i want to give them the benefit of the doubt and think that this mantra extends somewhere past banning abortions and preventing the terminally ill from dying with dignity. then, i read things like this...and any desire i have to give the catholic church the benefit of the doubt goes away.

it blows my mind. a nine-year-old girl's stepfather has been sexually abusing her since she was six. she gets stomach pains one day. her mother takes her to the hospital, and the doctors find out that this nine-year-old girl is pregnant with twins as a result of this vicious sexual abuse. this girl, being nine, is not big enough to carry a baby to term--having one baby in there, much less two, would rip her uterus to shreds and probably kill her. the only way to save her life is to terminate the pregnancy.

did the catholic church respect this girl's life enough to realise that an abortion was the only way to save her life? no. in fact, they didn't even give her the respect of being quiet about it and letting her go through this traumatic time in privacy. they made a big, public stink and tried to shame the doctors into denying her the abortion that would save her life.

the doctors stood their ground, and gave her the abortion on wednesday.

now, the archbishop is excommunicating the doctors as well as the girl's mother, for being the people who allowed that abortion to happen.

this makes me so mad. after having the gall to make this already difficult time of this girl's life even more difficult on her, her mother, and the doctors who saved her life...now they're very publicly kicking the mother and the doctors out of the church? unbelievable. are we supposed to give them a medal for compassion because they're not kicking the girl out of the church too, due to her age?

i think the church could learn a thing or two about respecting life from these doctors and the girl's mother. in the face of the heavy pressure put on them by the catholic church to throw the girl's life away for the sake of a political crusade, they instead went through with the one medical procedure that was going to save her life and give her a chance to grow up, hopefully work through her abuse at the hands of her stepfather, and live a happy life someday.

Full post as published by the last refuge of the persecuted crack smoker on March 06, 2009 (boomark / email).