VATICAN, March 7, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Vatican intervened directly in the case of the Nicaraguan 9-year-old who was found pregnant as the result of a rape. A February 21 letter from the Vatican was sent to church officials in Nicaragua encouraging the church to be a support to the child and her family while reminding them that the unborn child was innocent and deserving of the right to life. Zenit News published excerpts of the letter signed by Cardinal Alfonso Lَpez Trujillo, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

The letter states that "every innocent human being is absolutely equal to all others in the right to life," so that "the painful circumstances of this pregnancy, even though serious and dramatic -- to use the words of the encyclical 'Evangelium Vitae' -- can never justify the deliberate elimination of an innocent human being." The letter also urges that "the innocent victims of such an execrable event" be comforted and that "the minds be enlightened and the hearts moved of all those who with their service to life can be of help in the present circumstances."
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/mar/03030704.html
See the Zenit News coverage at:
http://zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=32322