A follow-up to our previous post.
From BBC recently, the Vatican’s statement on the excommunication in Brazil:
Cardinal Re, who heads the Roman Catholic Church’s Congregation for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, told La Stampa that the archbishop had been right to excommunicate the mother and doctors.
“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,” he said.
“Life must always be protected, the attack on the Brazilian Church is unjustified.”
The important question here is not whether or not to protect life, but in a situation where the life of the mother is imperiled by her pregnancy, whether to prioritize the life of the mother or the unborn fetus(es).
Other interesting views:
- One of the bloggers on our blogroll, Objectivist Reason, described why a defense of unborn potential is inherently a fallacy.
- Daniel Florien of Unreasonable Faith presented a couple of months back how pro-life supporters are always impassionately defending unborn life, but rarely consider the welfare of the mother.
Interesting to note also: had the 9-year old girl been of age, she would also have been excommunicated as well.
This is complete and utter bullshit from the Vatican.
When will the defenders of the unborn aim their guns at the liquor industry? According to the web site of the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (http://www.nofas.org), “Alcohol use during pregnancy is the leading known preventable cause of mental retardation and birth defects in the United States.”
Here’s a striking citation from the site:
“Of all the substances of abuse (including cocaine,
heroin and marijuana), alcohol produces by far the
most serious neurobehavioral effects in the fetus.”
– Institute of Medicine, 1996.
I would never advocate outlawing booze (we can see in the chaos on the U.S.-Mexican border how drug prohibitions tend to produce their own brand of social harm). But what about the bully pulpit? Why do pro-lifers refrain from using their visibility to condemn the manufacturers, promoters, and sellers of the baby-mangling drug, alcohol?
Maybe the fulminations of the anti-choice crowd are about something other than the well being of the most vulnerable.