# Catholic Church excommunicates raped 9 year old girl who had abortion ... but not her rapist

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-church-excommunicates-raped-9-year-old-girl-who-had-abortion-but-not-her-rapist/714838>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [March 12, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-church-excommunicates-raped-9-year-old-girl-who-had-abortion-but-not-her-rapist/714838 "2015-03-12T16:35:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 12

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**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-church-excommunicates-raped-9-year-old-girl-who-had-abortion-but-not-her-rapist/714838/221 "2015-03-21T10:54:57Z")

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> [@Smapti](#):
>
> Not at all. I agree that the Church is being silly here. I was merely pointing out the absurdity of complaining about a “law” which, according to the organization that maintains it, is based on divine fiat.
> 
> If the Catholic Church believes that abortion is inexcusable in the eyes of God, then arguing against it on the basis of feminism or individual rights or sexual freedom isn’t going to be very persuasive - the argument has to be couched in the claim either that God does not exist, that God is objectively wrong, or that the Church is wrong about what God wants.

I think we’re arguing against it on the medical inadvisability of a _Homo sapiens_ continuing a pregnancy when still that physically immature. So, not “feminism or individual rights or sexual freedom.”

Besides, it is entirely plausible that the Church has a distorted ideas of what God wants. The birth control prohibitions were formulated by human beings. Arguably, they have less to do with any divine command than with a human philosophy.

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**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2015, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/catholic-church-excommunicates-raped-9-year-old-girl-who-had-abortion-but-not-her-rapist/714838/222 "2015-03-21T23:34:19Z")

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> [@Steophan](#):
>
> All this means is that you’re worshipping a god who claims to have that power, but doesn’t. We know from the bible (assuming it’s true) that god could - indeed did - originally create the earth as a paradise, but then chose to destroy that paradise, because of the way humans acted in ignorance.
> 
> The argument that god is incapable of recreating that paradise, and yet is worthy of worship, is wholly unpersuasive.

While I certainly concede that there are Christian sects which teach the literal existence of a paradise at the beginning of earth, I would point out that it’s the Catholic teachings under discussion here, and it’s my own Catholic faith I’m explaining.

With this in mind, you should understand that “we” don’t know from the Bible that God Created the Earth as a paradise, since we regard the Eden story as poetic parable.

Did you know that?

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