The president of the Supreme Court of Brazil is finishing her last days in office and wants to leave her mark on an issue as capital as it is controversial. Judge Rosa Weber voted this Friday in favor of decriminalizing abortion until week 12 by reopening deliberations on a case with the potential for Brazil to cease to be the only one of the large Latin American countries where the voluntary interruption of pregnancy is still restricted to three assumptions. That decision by Weber in a case for which she is a rapporteur is part of her farewell. Next week she will be forced to retire when she turns 75. It shows how thorny the issue still is, immediately after the judge’s vote the hearing was suspended and the debate will be resumed later on an undetermined date.
The judge maintains in her decision that, “when observing the world from the lens of women, motherhood should not derive from social coercion (…), but from the free exercise of self-determination to build their life project.” Weber wanted to make his position clear in a case that the Supreme Court has had on the table for six years. And at a time when it is likely that Weber will be replaced by a man and there will be only one woman left among the eleven robes.
For seven decades, Brazilian women have been able to terminate their pregnancy in the event of rape or risk to the health of the pregnant woman. And since 2012, and thanks to a court decision, in case the fetus lacks a brain.
The anthropologist Débora Diniz, one of the main references on abortion in this country, stated early this Friday that “Brazil is closer than ever to decriminalizing it.” The latest national survey indicates that one in seven Brazilian women has terminated at least one pregnancy before turning 40. Around half a million abortions are performed each year. The majority, clandestine. Black Brazilian women are 46% more likely to undergo an unsafe process. The legal ones are very few, around 2,000 annually.
Diniz maintains that Judge Weber’s vote “is very solid” and makes it clear that the Penal Code contradicts the Constitution in this area. The expert emphasizes that the ruling responds to the main controversies on the issue but she emphasizes that “we have to wait for the trial.” The unknown is whether it will be resumed in a matter of weeks, months or years.
Although Brazil was a pioneer in America by approving the right to abortion in 1940, in recent years it has been left far behind in the battle for reproductive rights due to the ultraconservative wave that brought retired military man Jair Bolsonaro to power. While Bolsonaro isolated Brazil from the world, he sealed a political alliance with the evangelical churches and cut rights, decriminalization advanced rapidly in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico thanks to a powerful feminist mobilization.
The Argentine Senate legalized it at the end of 2020 until week 14. The Colombian Supreme Court gave the green light, in 2022, until week 24. And, unanimously, the highest Mexican court has just legalized it this month throughout the territory.
The case that Weber spoke about last night goes back a long way. It is a lawsuit filed by the left-wing Socialism and Freedom Parties (PSOL), which has been tried in the Supreme Court since 2017.
As specialists warn, even in obvious cases such as rape, many Brazilian women are unaware that they have the right to a safe and free abortion in public healthcare. Even the doctors and nurses who treat them often do not inform them of this possibility. And then there is deep-rooted conservatism, which places the embryo above all other considerations. Every so often, horrifying cases are known, such as that of an 11-year-old girl who recently gave birth to a second baby as a result of the rape of a relative of hers.
The right to abortion is a politically toxic issue in Brazil. During the 13 years of Government of the Workers’ Party (PT), the only advance was to authorize it in cases of anencephaly and it was a judicial decision. During the last electoral campaign, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva insisted on the position that he has defended for years: it is a matter of public health and he is personally against it. He has never championed the cause, as the Argentine Alberto Fernández did, because he knows that in today’s Brazil it is a recipe for losing electoral support.
Before retiring, Weber wanted to make sure that the court addressed several important issues: the right to abortion, the first trials for the coup attempt last January and the rights of indigenous people to the lands their ancestors inhabited before 1988.
Weber’s replacement has given rise to an intense and ingenious campaign promoted by black and feminist movements for President Lula to appoint a woman, preferably black, to occupy the position. He insists that he is looking for someone of maximum trust and everything indicates that he will name a second man, as he did in June, when he rewarded the lawyer who got him out of prison. In that case there would be only one judge left in the Supreme Court.
A far from trivial fact when the highest court has pending the debate on whether to decriminalize the interruption of pregnancy. The Supreme Court is right now the only option to achieve that goal given that the current Congress is the most conservative in history.
In one of her first interviews after assuming the position of Minister of Women, Cida Gonçalves, openly warned of the risk of losing what she had achieved if the issue landed in the parliamentary chambers: “The way it is being raised today by Congress, in any case discussion about abortion we are going to lose more than win.” The minister added that, “as far as it is possible to advance, we will advance. Now, if it is to go back, it is better to ensure what is already guaranteed by law.”
#Supreme #Court #Brazil #briefly #resumes #debate #decriminalization #abortion