Brazil has more rallies against setbacks to abortion law

São Paulo’s Paulista Avenue was the scene of yet another demonstration against a bill (PL-1904) that equates the abortion of pregnancies over 22 weeks with murder. This Saturday (Jun. 15) saw the second protest held this week in São Paulo against the piece of legislation, which is being discussed as a matter of urgency in the lower house. The urgency does away with the time required between stages of the legislative procedure as well as deadlines and certain formalities.

As it stands today, abortions are allowed in Brazil at at point during pregnancy when the pregnancy is the result of rape, as well as when there is a risk to the mother’s life and in the case of anencephalic babies.

However, the bill that was voted on last Wednesday (12), in addition to setting the maximum time limit for legal abortions at 22 weeks, increases the maximum sentence for those who undergo the procedure from 10 to 20 years.

“Feminists won’t leave the streets until this bill is shelved,” said Ana Luiza Trancoso, a member of the Juntas collective and the State Front for the Legalization of Abortion.

In the protesters’ view, if the text becomes law, it will mainly affect children victims of rape, whose cases and pregnancies can take time to be identified. According to the Public Security Forum, 74,930 people were raped in Brazil in 2022. Of these, 61.4 percent were children under the age of 13.

“The main victims are girls between the ages of 10 and 14. This violence happens at home. Children are not aware of their bodies. They don’t know what it’s like to be pregnant. That’s why the discovery [of pregnancy] comes late. In addition, we know that legal abortion services always put up obstacles. In some cases, girls have had to move to another city or state to get an abortion. And when they arrive, they are pressured [not to have an abortion], and then weeks go by,” Trancoso pointed out.

“A cruel treatment”

In a statement, the São Paulo chapter of the Brazilian Bar Association expressed “deep concern” about the bill. “This change imposes a significant barrier for girls and women who have been raped, often forcing them to carry the pregnancy to term, which can be considered a cruel and degrading treatment,” the note reads.

The severe criminalization of abortion, the note goes on to say, “does not reduce its occurrence, but pushes girls and women, especially the poorest, into unsafe and life-threatening clandestine procedures, deepening social discrimination.”

“Insanity”

During the G7 Summit in Italy, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke out against the bill.

“I, Luiz Inácio, am against abortion. But since abortion is a reality, we need to treat it as a public health issue. I think it’s insanity for someone to want to punish a woman with a greater penalty than the criminal who committed the rape,” he said at a press conference in the Puglia region of Italy.