Brazil Prez Flouts Church, Backs Abortion Docs

Brazil’s president today attacked the archbishop who excommunicated the doctors who performed an abortion on a 9-year-old rape victim. The girl had allegedly been impregnated with twins by her stepfather, who was not disciplined when Jose Cardoso Sobrinho excommunicated the girl’s mother and her doctors. “In this case, medicine is more right than the Church,” said President Luiz Inacio da Silva.

Sobrinho defended his actions, saying he hadn’t excommunicated the stepfather because “a graver act than (rape) is abortion, to eliminate an innocent life.” The Vatican backed his decision, and one cardinal said the unborn twins were innocent. But an outraged public has largely sided with the “sinners,” CNN reports. One of the doctors got a standing ovation today at a women’s health conference. (More Brazil stories.)