MADRID, March 7, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Feminist groups in Spain and Nicaragua have launched an offensive against the Catholic Church over the Church's offer to assist a 9 year-old rape victim to keep her child rather than undergo an abortion. After medical authorities ruled that the child's health would be equally at risk with an abortion as with giving birth, the Church warned that anyone who participated in the girl's abortion would be ipso facto excommunicated.

Feminist groups in Spain have collected over 25,000 names of their collaborators who they say "have participated and contributed actively in making the abortion of Rosa possible." The names were submitted to the Catholic authorities in Nicaragua and the Vatican, demanding that they all be excommunicated as well as the abortionists involved in the act.

The UK Guardian newspaper, has disseminated a false report that the rebellion has forced a "Vatican u-turn in (the) child rape case." The report, which was also picked up the Australian paper The Age, maintains that the Vatican has withdrawn a threat of excommunication as the result of the protest. In reality, Nicaraguan Archbishop Miguel Obando y Bravo, the head of the Nicaraguan Bishop's conference said, "It's not that I'm going to excommunicate them, but that (the canonical sentence of excommunication) falls upon them 'ipso facto.'"
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2003/mar/03030703.html
See the feminist website, the Guardian coverage:
http://www.redfeminista.org/EXCOMUNION.asp
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,909061,00.html