As you read these paragraphs, a girl under 14 years old is in labor in a hospital in Brazil. Every day, 38 girls of that age become mothers. In the eyes of the law, they are victims of sexual abuse—even if the relationship is consensual—and therefore have the right to abortion like all rape victims. Statistics tell us that, in many cases, she has been raped in the family home by her father, her stepfather, a brother, an uncle… And the pregnancy was only discovered when she showed her belly, crossing the threshold of week 22 .
The Brazilian Congress ignited a monumental controversy last week by approving the urgent processing of a bill to toughen the Penal Code so that a woman who aborts after week 22 is accused of homicide and punished with 20 years in prison. jail. That is, a sentence that doubles that of the rapist (10 years). Gynecologists warned that the proposal mainly affects girls who are victims of abuse, who hide their pregnancy until it is evident or are even so young that they do not even understand the signals that their body emits.
A cry — “Menina não é mãe” (A girl is not a mother) — runs through Brazil. The protests reached such a scale that Congress has announced that it will put the initiative into hibernation for six months.
This case focuses on several chronic problems: the difficulties in accessing legal abortion (allowed in cases of risk to the mother’s health, rape or if the fetus has not developed the brain), the widespread sexual abuse of minors and the lack of sexual education. But, in addition, it is an emblematic example of how politics works in Brazil, the infinite swings of each proposal in a Congress where the exchange of favors reigns, the radioactive nature of the issue, the widespread fear of rejection by the evangelical electorate, the power of social networks and the ease with which parliamentarians (or judges) change their opinion in a heartbeat without breaking a sweat.
The right to abortion has strongly returned to the foreground with figures (2,000 legal abortions and around a million illegal ones per year), heartbreaking testimonies, a lot of hypocrisy and double standards. But in Brazil politics moves in flashes. Debates are born suddenly, gain strength, languish and die in days or weeks. And then, they are resurrected. The Supreme Court has been deliberating for years, in public sessions and months-long sessions, on the right to terminate pregnancy or the legalization of drugs. The same thing happens with countless bills. The problem for Brazilian progressives is that the current Congress is the most conservative and reactionary since the end of the dictatorship.
Popular indignation has focused this time on the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Artur Lira, who aired the matter in 23 seconds. On Wednesday the 12th, his honorable Members approved by consent that PL1.904/24, nicknamed PL of rape, went directly to the plenary session, without debate in committee. In the chamber, only two far-left parties were heard protesting. The response of the Brazilian feminist movement was as swift as it was forceful. Within 24 hours, thousands of women and men took to the streets with the mission of stopping the equation of legal abortion with homicide. “A project makes Brazil’s abortion law equal to that of Afghanistan,” she headlined first. Folha de S. Paulo.
Brazil, which was a pioneer in Latin America by regulating the interruption of pregnancy in the 1940s, has been left behind, stuck in the three cases while Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Uruguay have decriminalized it.
The atmosphere in Brazil is so reactionary that the Minister of Women, Cida Gonçalves, left a clear warning as soon as she came to office: “In any discussion about abortion [en el Congreso] “We are going to lose more than advance,” he said in an interview.
Conservatism is advancing steadily thanks to the growing social and political influence of the evangelical churches. But there is another aspect, to which little attention is paid, in which this country distinguishes itself from its neighbors. Here women are only 17% of parliamentarians. At the tail end of Latin America and the world. Ranked 133 in the world ranking, far behind Mexico (4th), Argentina (24th), Chile (44th), Colombia (74th) or Uruguay (96th).
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his ministers took their time to raise their voices. The first lady, Janja da Silva, who has enormous political influence, led the way by tweeting her arguments against her. Her husband and other left-wing politicians followed her, although with a harsh preamble: “I am against abortion, but…”.
Eu, Luiz Inácio, against abortion. But, since abortion is a reality, we need to treat it as a public health question. It is an insanity to want to punish a female victim of statutory rape with a greater penalty than a criminal who commits statutory rape. I am certain that or that…
— Lula (@LulaOficial) June 15, 2024
These days, pamphlets have circulated on networks indicating with names and surnames the deputies—and deputies—who endorsed the proposal. One said she regretted it. Faced with the indignation and scandal, the parties of the center (the great center) began to relocate. This constellation of acronyms united by the defense of their interests and leaning towards the center-right are the true balance in Congress. They prefer to ally themselves with the harshest Bolsonarism, but they never put all their eggs in the same basket.
The head of the centerLira, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, the same one who aired the issue in one breath, announced days later that the debate on abortion is shelved for at least six months, until after the municipal elections in which Lula and a disqualified Jair Bolsonaro will measure forces.
One of the theories put forward about the evangelical deputy’s motives for proposing that legal abortion be punished as homicide suggests that he wanted it to go ahead to put President Lula in the position of whether to veto it or not, to satisfy the progressive wing among his followers. or risk rejection by believers.
For a few days, abortion and the resulting debate have capitalized on information, reports, columns and editorials. It also happened in 2020, when a 10-year-old girl who was repeatedly raped by her uncle was harassed by ultra activists and evangelical pastors when she arrived at the hospital to terminate the pregnancy. She had to travel 1,500 kilometers and receive various aid to exercise her right to legal abortion. So the women’s minister was an evangelical pastor. Interest in the matter soon waned as hundreds of Brazilian women who are not protected by current law travel to Argentina with the help of NGOs.
It was not a big surprise that the most powerful and famous judge in Brazil, Alexandre de Moraes, in the Supreme Court, intervened in the hottest issue of the moment. He ordered several media outlets to remove interviews in which the ex-wife of Lira, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, reported having been physically attacked by him (a case filed in 2015). Internet users and the press protested with cries of censorship. And, within hours, the judge changed his mind and allowed them to be published.
Whether the controversy persists or subsides, tomorrow 38 Brazilian girls under the age of 14 will give birth to a baby.
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