More Catholic fail in Brazil

[mirrorshard]

More Catholic Fail: nine-year-old rape victim pregnant with twins, has abortion, bishop excommunicates everyone who helped her, Vatican defends the bishop.

I wish this sort of thing was unexpected, but really, that's bishops for you. With a few honourable exceptions, who'd be decent noble human beings without any titles at all, all the ones we hear about are a bunch of authoritarian frock-wearing gay-hating child-killing paedophile-enabling Holocaust-denying weirdos.

The thing is... for once, I'm not going to condemn the bishop in question for moral cowardice, for being evil, or for having a moral compass so far out of whack it thinks Santa's living in Tunbridge Wells.

This particular episode, of all of them, is just plain stupid. No matter how you feel about abortion or teenage childhood pregnancy, none of the Bishop's response makes either moral or tactical sense.

There is no conceivable way that this girl could have become a mother. There was only one conceivable way that she could have survived the whole tragic episode, and she took it. Attempting to cram a pair of growing foetuses inside a nine-year-old girl just does not work. I like to think of early-stage pregnancies as the potential for a person, but barring a few centuries' worth of SFnal medical development those poor scraps of cells didn't even have that.

So what did the Bishop think he was trying to achieve? Even if pregnancy is supposed to be a good thing in itself, it's atomistic. Six months' worth isn't better than three. If sex isn't worth it unless you get a child out of it, then that should surely go nine times over for pregnancy.

Of course, that assumes he was trying to achieve something positive... he may be the kind of sub-Daily Mail scum who thinks an object lesson will teach all those disobedient nine-year-old girls that they'd jolly well better stop getting themselves raped if they know what's good for them.

Alternatively, of course, he might be some sort of anti-rational superstitious moron. Something bad happened - quick, make sure someone connected with it suffers in some baroquely unpleasant fashion, or it will happen again! This is cargo-cult thinking. They've seen justice happening, and they know it's a good thing, but they don't know how it works and can't reconstruct the chain of decisions and desired outcomes that lead to the end results.

On the gripping hand, he may just be a panicked authoritarian, who's made himself subject to the Peter Principle. Told that he's some sort of spiritual shepherd, responsible for peoples' souls, he worries and panics and starts going through pointless rituals of condemnation and casting-out to reassure himself that he still has a firm grip on his responsibilities. He's Doing Something, and responding vigorously to the evidence of sin. Never mind the niggling little details; the important thing is that it says, right here in the manual, that abortion is a sin and it must be stopped. If you just follow the manual, it'll all turn out OK, and WILL YOU JUST DO WHAT YOU'RE TOLD AND STOP QUESTIONING EVERY LITTLE THING I SAY!

Really quite sad. I almost pity him, except, well... he took up bishoping of his own free will, and Peter Principle or not he knew what was coming up.

Since I'm genuinely curious - what's the point of bishops? Why do we still have them? What do they do that any other priest can't?

Comments

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

There is no conceivable way that this girl could have become a mother. There was only one conceivable way that she could have survived the whole tragic episode, and she took it. Attempting to cram a pair of growing foetuses inside a nine-year-old girl just does not work.

Hmm... I believe a ten year old gave birth to twins and survived, and that was in 1979 - survival rates generally have improved a lot since then. I imagine that the bishop believed there was a good chance all three surviving this time as well.

Which doesn't make the excommunication OK, of course - there clearly was a significant risk to the girl's life and so she had every right to choose an abortion. But I don't think it was all as sinister as your post suggests.

As for the point of bishops... It's one of the things I discussed with the Imam I met last week. He sees the lack of anything similar as one of the biggest weaknesses in Islam. I could go into what they do and why, but I don't think you're really in a place to hear about it, and I suspect the book that emperor recommends says it better than I do.

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

(Quoted from the BBC site):

However, doctors at the hospital said they had to take account of the welfare of the girl, and that she was so small that her uterus did not have the ability to contain one child let alone two.

I assume, given this, that her uterus was smaller than the ten year old in 1979. I'd like to read precisely what the doctors at the hospital said, but "did not have the ability" suggests to me more than a "significant risk".

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

The bishop may well have been *wrong* to believe the best way of maximising the chances of as many people as possible surviving was not to go ahead with the abortion, but I still think that's a more likely reason for his behaviour than wanting to punish rape victims or thinking pregnancy is in itself good even if there's no way it can lead to a birth.

(And it's not as though *we* don't ignore or dismiss quotes from experts when we disagree with them too. As someone who has to read the Daily Mail for work purposes, it's something I do almost every day!)

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

The bishop may well have been *wrong* to believe the best way of maximising the chances of as many people as possible surviving was not to go ahead with the abortion, but I still think that's a more likely reason for his behaviour than wanting to punish rape victims or thinking pregnancy is in itself good even if there's no way it can lead to a birth.

I suspect you are right. I *hope* you are right.

(And it's not as though *we* don't ignore or dismiss quotes from experts when we disagree with them too. As someone who has to read the Daily Mail for work purposes, it's something I do almost every day!)

Ha! This is true.

Still... on what is to a large extent a medical issue one would hope that he'd consult *an* expert before making a judgement, even if he didn't believe those particular hospital doctors for some reason. I think he had an overwhelming responsibility to do so.

Of course, I don't know that he didn't...

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's where I was coming from with the Worlds Youngest Mother of Twins. He wouldn't have known about the precise details of this case, so would presumably have looked at others and based his decision on that.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

If the nearest example of a child surviving something similar, and an older child at that, was thirty years ago, then I'd venture to guess that the survival rates must be appalling. Puberty is happening earlier and earlier these days, and child abuse is sadly common, so it's not as if this is the first nine year old to have been raped since then.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Really? I'd have thought that almost all young children who get pregnant either choose or are forced to have abortions. I've never heard of nine and ten year olds who live in countries with decent medical systems deciding to carry a pregnancy to term and dying because of it, and I would have thought it would be the kind of thing that makes the news.

Do you really think it's something that happens a lot? Why?

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

I'm quoting your own comment where you cite a case of a ten year old surviving giving birth to twins in 1979. Thirty years till the last known safe occurrence of this sort of thing suggests that, on the whole, it's not safe. But this is all complete extrapolation from a simple comment, for all I know that was just the one you've heard of that popped into your mind, rather than the only one in existence.

I wonder how often it does happen? Child abuse - a lot, alas. Child abuse leading to pregnancies - more than it used to, but not terribly often. In Western countries, the vast majority of those pregnancies will be terminated as routine. In less privileged countries or countries where abortion is banned, that won't be the case, but we're unlikely to hear about it. It's probably the twins that makes this case stand out so much, in the end, because that's the one variable that kicks it over the edge into very very rare, plus all the kerfuffle with the excommunications.

In Judaism, the one rule that overrides all other rules is the preservation of human life. Anyone in authority who took action without thoroughly researching the risk to the pregnant child would be in deep, deep trouble. You can't just say "he wasn't a doctor, how could he know", he had to consult medical experts, and in Judaism he'd probably have had to consult at least two to make sure it was a balanced view. It's the responsibility of the clergy to make sure they get their rules prioritised correctly and safeguard their flock at all times. I thought it was more or less the same in other religions? The thing that really horrifies me about this case isn't the end result of the excommunications, it's that the priest does not appear to have consulted the appropriate medical experts before going ahead with his decision.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

Anyone in authority who took action without thoroughly researching the risk to the pregnant child would be in deep, deep trouble... I thought it was more or less the same in other religions?

So did I. I'm angry that doesn't seem to have been the case here.

The thing that horrifies me most is obviously a child being raped, but yes, I believe that failing to do his research properly is where the bishop went wrong.

Most of the posts I've seen don't seem to agree with this - they think the Catholic position is that abortion is banned even if it would undoubtedly save a life, which would mean the bishop wouldn't have to do any research.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

Oops, what I meant by "this case" was the part that involved the church authorities, obviously the original rape is far and away the worst thing. Having since then found out that the rapist didn't get excommunicated, something is truly wonky in the system of priorities here. (Thankfully he has been arrested at least.) That's well out of horrifying and into plain odd. I'm guessing the causes are a) religions that are thousands of years old tend to tie themselves in knots when trying to update rules that were originally from a very specific social context (this is what causes most of the oddities in Orthodox Judaism), and b) the Catholic Church has somehow ended up putting a disproportionate focus on abortion.

I'm looking it up, and to my surprise it does seem that saving the mother's life isn't considered a valid reason for exception in Catholicism. However, abortion is permissible in cases where the pregnancy could not survive anyway and the mother's life is at risk, for instance in cases of ectopic pregnancy or uterine cancer, although they don't like calling it abortion, they're talking about hysterectomies and so on instead. I'm trying to find out more about this, since it may be relevant in this case (there's too much on this page for me to skim, I have crappy eyes I'm afraid, but I think someone said that both the child's life and the unborn twins' lives were at risk if the pregnancy continued), but I've found this (http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/592962.html):

There are two questions at issue here. One is medical (Is there ever need for an abortion to save the mother's life?) and the other is moral (Would an abortion in that case be justified?) The answer to both questions is no. There is no medical situation whose only
solution is a direct abortion, as many doctors have testified.

Very blinkered thinking there. My cousin is currently going through assisted reproduction, and one reason why she's doing this is because a pregnancy would literally kill her (she has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy and is very severely disabled. I don't even dare ask what the Catholic church would say about her therefore having to use contraception, they'd probably tell her she shouldn't be allowed to marry). On further googling, a lot of people seem to be very anxious to deny that the situation where the mother's life would be at risk is even possible. Then there are the ones who grudgingly admit that it could happen, but say that life-threatening complications in pregnancy always occur so late that you could just whisk the babies out and into an incubator. No one seems to be addressing the simple point that if the mother dies during pregnancy, the foetus is most likely to die as well.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

As a sidebar comment - I'd be extremely dubious about the status of a decision under such circumstances. If she isn't considered capable of consenting to sex, consenting to motherhood would be a bit beyond the pale. (I realise this isn't a legal concept in the same way, but it's at least as much of a moral one.)

Also, interesting article (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16647417). A cursory look around can't find any studies of the risk to the mother, but there is apparently a significant elevation in the risk of stillbirth.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

As a sidebar comment - I'd be extremely dubious about the status of a decision under such circumstances. If she isn't considered capable of consenting to sex, consenting to motherhood would be a bit beyond the pale.

I disagree. A child deciding whether to have sex or not involves a choice between a good option (not having sex) and a bad one (having sex - which an overwhelming body of research shows damages children in all kinds of ways.)

A child choosing what to do about their pregnancy is instead choosing between two bad options, and I think she has every right to decide that carrying the pregnancy to term is less bad than having an abortion.

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

I think we have to remember that the age of consent is a legal fiction. It's a useful fiction, but we should extrapolate from it to say that no-one under the age of 16 (or 14 or 18 or whatever, depending on where you live) is capable of making meaningful life decisions.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

the bishop believed there was a good chance all three surviving this time as well.

I'm sorry - believed this based on exactly what? Had he met the child? Was he a qualified physician? Had he read the medical reports from the hospital in which the doctor's professional opinion was that the girl and the foetuses would almost certainly die if the pregnancy were allowed to continue? No.

I don't see anything 'sinister' here, though. Just religious dogma over-riding human compassion.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what the bishop's sources were.

The weird thing is it's not really even Catholic dogma - the Catechism of the Catholic Church allows killing in self defence or the defence of others, which this clearly was.

As I say below, I find the idea of being blamed for being raped sinister.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I don't think he even looked at the case individually at all - I think he just pulled the 'abortion is wrong ' card out. I can't possibly imagine that any rational person could look at this case and think it's right to punish a child and her mother for that child being repeatedly raped and made pregnant. So all I can think is that he's blinded by his religious beliefs.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly interested to hear your viewpoint on it, but I shall also attempt to read that book when I can find the whole thing, and I don't want to make you reiterate things unnecessarily. (For the avoidance of doubt, I am genuinely interested - I just want to stop being annoyed by this issue, and I don't really mind whether I do it by finding good reasons for the continuance of bishops or by seeing them all reduced to the ranks.)

But I don't think it was all as sinister as your post suggests. I didn't use that word, and to me it suggests Machiavellian or hidden agendas - I don't see any of those here, only industrial-grade stupidity. What do you mean by it?

Regarding the survival issue, mirabehn's comment says basically what I feel.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

You seemed to imply you the bishop knew there was no way any of them would survive if the pregnancy was carried to term and so the only possible explanations for his decision were:

1) he thought pregnancy is of itself good enough
2) he wanted to teach the child (and those like her) a lesson
3) he was lashing out unthinkingly, either because it's a sin so someone has to be punished, or more generally to atone for the Bad Thing.

I think a far more plausible explanation is that he believed - rightly or wrongly - that the best odds for keeping as many people alive as possible was by not giving the girl an abortion.

I used the word 'sinister' because I think punishing people for being raped is sinister, by which I mean it gives me a nasty shuddery creepy feeling when I think about it, as well as believing it's evil. I agree your other suggestions just involve industrial grade stupidity.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to imply that those were exclusive explanations; I agree that your alternative scenario, that he made a decision (which he believed to be his to make) without consulting an expert or collecting information from the case, is very plausible.

I don't believe that the punishment-for-being raped version is accurate; I included it more or less as a worst-case scenario. I agree entirely with your definition of "sinister" in this case.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Or indeed that he collected all the information he could, but it wasn't much, given that bishops aren't allowed access to other peoples' medical records, thank goodness!

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

Or indeed that he collected all the information he could, but it wasn't much, given that bishops aren't allowed access to other peoples' medical records, thank goodness!

That's a very good point (and yes, thank goodness!).

Mind you, I don't know much at all about the process of RC excommunication, but I would have expected that in the absence of detailed information, he should have refrained from excommunicating anyone? Or does it not work in that way?

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

No idea how it works, but I certainly agree he shouldn't have excommunicated anyone.

[arkady.livejournal.com]

I disagree; there is one person he should have excommunicated, and didn't: the rapist.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I know that the times I get most out of communion are the times I feel most sinful. I therefore object to withholding it from anyone, and feel that those who are deepest in sin are those who need it most.

Communion shouldn't be used to signal "the church approves of this person and the things they've done" any more than, say, NHS services should be used to show that the Government approves of a person and the things they've done.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, excommunication's reversible. Just ask Bishop Williamson.