Sao Paulo.- Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Sao Paulo this Saturday, amid a wave of protests across Brazil in opposition to a bill that will further criminalize abortion. If approved, this project will equate the termination of pregnancy after 22 weeks with homicide.
The bill, proposed by conservative legislators and which will be voted on in the lower house, would also apply in rape cases. Its detractors claim that those who seek an abortion after that period are mainly girl victims of rape whose pregnancies are usually detected late.
To mobilize the opposition, rights groups created the “A girl is not a mother” campaign, which has flooded social networks. Posters, stickers and flags with the slogan have abounded in the demonstrations. And in viral images, in which women appear in red capes, Brazil is compared to Gilead, the theocratic patriarchy created by Margaret Atwood in her dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Some 10,000 people, mainly women, filled several streets of Sao Paulo’s main boulevard this Saturday afternoon, according to organizers’ estimates. This has been the largest protest so far, after the events held in Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Florianopolis, Recife, Manaus and other cities. Many of the protesters wore green clothing and scarves, which are a common element in women’s rights demonstrations throughout Latin America.
Marli Gavioli, 65, had refrained from protesting since demonstrations in the 1980s calling for an end to the military dictatorship, but told The Associated Press that she is too outraged to stay home.
“I can’t stay out of this, or I’ll regret it too much. We women are being attacked from all fronts. It is time for us to do something,” she stressed.
Brazil only allows abortion in cases of rape if there is an obvious risk to the mother’s life, or if the fetus does not have a functional brain. Outside of these exceptions, the Brazilian penal code imposes between one and three years in prison for women who terminate their pregnancies. Some Brazilians travel abroad to have an abortion.
If the bill becomes law, the sentence will increase to between six and 20 years in prison when an abortion is performed after 22 weeks. Critics have pointed out that this will mean convicted rapists could receive lesser sentences than their victims.
Experts say late access to abortion reflects inequalities in health care. Girls, poor women, black women, and those living in rural areas face particular risk.
“We cannot be sentenced to prison for having suffered a rape and not receiving support and attention,” said Talita Rodrigues, a member of the rights group National Front against the Criminalization of Women and for the Legalization of Abortion, in a phone call. .
Of the 74,930 people who were victims of rape in Brazil in 2022, 61.4% were under 14 years old, according to a study carried out in 2023 by the Brazilian Forum on Public Security, an independent group that monitors crimes.
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