There was s simlar case in Ireland some years ago - the Irish courts tried to stop someone from taking their daughter to England for an abortion after she had been raped. Again, it was the Catholic church that tried to force their beliefs on others. They know the hypocrisy of this, given the large numbers of Catholics in Western Europe and the USA who have free access to contraceptives, abortion and the "morning after pill".

First of all, they are not pro-life. Anti-abortion or anti-choice, but not pro-life. All of the anti-abortion people really need to wake up and smell the flowers. This article says that about 1 million women in Brazil have illegal abortions. The number is THE SAME in the USA. The only difference? It's much safer here. Anti-abortion people don't care about children or families or women or ANYONE. They just want to see more dead women, and more dead doctors.

This kind of thing makes me sick. Really. 30,000 girls under the age of 14 having kids by cesarean is acceptable? What do they think happens to those girls, and those babies. I can guarantee you that the church isn't helping keep them fed or clothed or healthy or sheltered. I cannot even describe how angry this kind of thing makes me.

The Archbishop can say what he whants only god can excommunicate, god is within all of us not in his Church.

How come they don't all agree to take this MONSTER step-father out back (abusing this poor child for three years!) and shoot the S.O.B. I want to see this kind of abuse suffer harsh consequences, then maybe- just maybe- we wouldn't have to hear about a 9 year old getting pregnant by a parent.

For you strangers, you should consider that we're living a delicate moment. The Catholic Church is one of the few institutions which are fighting communist rule around here. I agree with the "protect the child" point of view, but for long the UN has been pressuring the president Luiz Stalinacio (Lula) to approve abortion and others methods to reduce population. Lula wants it, but the people don't. We're a conservative people, we don't want to submit ourselves to no one communist dictator or UN's global government rule, and we don't want to trade our freedom and habits for the leftist "politically correct". And if you wonder, people elected these communists because we got some trauma from past military government, but most brs don't recognize them as leftists. About the abortion, if the Church allow such thing, then it would corrupt it's leaderships. It's infiltrated already, so they just want to make things harder. Excommunication is not to offend, the church knows that the abortion is the most viable option, but they can't "approve it". Problem is that media is making a drama trying to show the church as an evil entity while the family could just ignore them for good.