Missionaries accuse Amazonian tribes of infanticide; Brazilain Government Condemns Missionares

[TheMightyFavog]

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Story?id=5861778&page=1


Evangelical Christian missionaries have launched a campaign against what they claim is the widespread practice of infanticide among Amazonian Indians.

The missionaries, associated with the U.S.-based group Youth With a Mission, say the Brazilian government is turning a blind eye to the killing of babies born with birth defects, many of which are treatable by Western medicine.

Brazilian government officials say the missionaries are exaggerating and exploiting the issue to justify their attempts to convert Indians to Christianity, destroying ancient civilizations in the process.

The fight has spilled into American churches and Brazilian national politics. It has reached the point that the Brazilian Department of Indian Affairs is accusing the evangelicals of enslaving Indians and disguising their intent to evangelize.

[Kceres]

1. For heaven's sake, leave these poor people alone.

So are the missionaries going to install electricity for ventilators? How are they going to manage feeding tubes? Oh, and they'll need incubators, too. And refrigeration. Give me a break. Unless the missionaries are willing to take in critically sick newborns as well as pay for their care, they need to look the other way.

[Sal Minella]

6. They should worry about illnesses/diseases in THIS country that are "treatable by Western medicine"

except the victims can't afford to see a doctor or get prescriptions filled.

The "missionaries" could find plenty of "treatable" people to worry about here, if they actually gave a shit.

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. If God wanted them to live....

Who are the missionaries, to countermand the will of God?

[anonymous171]

3. What are the fundies doing down in Latin America?

That's Catholic Territory. Stay away.

[Richard D]

4. South America is crawling . . .

. . . with evangelicals and mormons. Scum, all of them. Destroying culture, tradition, medicine, and basic survival to convert the people to their brands of barbarianism.

[TheMightyFavog]

5. From what I hear...

The Catholic Church ain't too happy about the fundiegelicals (particularly the Pentecostals) and Mormons muscling in on their turf.

[Richard D]

8. They are really scum of the earth

And the Catholic church isn't nearly the power there it once was. It's common for the fundies to go into villages - as far from towns as possible, and scar the people shitless with devil talk, even to offer sick people medicine if they will just accept jesus while telling them that their herbal medicinal knowledge is from the devil. Scum of the earth.

[Lars39]

10. The Pentecostals were handing out bras for the women to wear

while they washed their clothes in a river that could be seen from the road in Honduras. Wouldn't want to get the male missionaries all excited, you know. :silly:

[SoCalDem]

7. ALL cultures have practiced infanticide

It's not a pleasant thing to consider, but before "modernity" arrived, this happened a LOT..

People needed healthy children, and the sick ones "fell by the wayside"..

A family that needed all hands on deck could not afford the time and effort needed to keep a severely handicapped child alive..

A very old pediatrician once told me that "back in the day" when births were a family-event, tended to by close friends and family, a lot of "stillborn" children were born, and most of the time these were babies who were "not normal"...often the mother was even told that the baby has died, when perhaps the baby was just not "allowed to breathe"...

This old doctor was at the end of his career back in 1973, and had apprenticed with an old "farm doctor" in Indiana, back in the depression era.. Farm people, miles from the nearest one-horse towns, could not cope with handicapped children who would take up all of mother's time.. ..and with no effective birth control, there would be another baby in a year or so..probably a healthy one..

[ogneopasno]

9. Very sad.

[cbc5g]

11. Why can't the fuckers just leave people alone