We welcomed March with France's parliament approving the right to abortion in the country's constitution: 780 votes in favor and 72 against. A few days earlier, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, a bill aimed at guaranteeing the humane treatment of women seeking legal abortion – that is, what is already provided for in Brazil’s Penal Code – was defeated: 32 votes against and only eight in favor.
The bill, proposed by Marielle Franco, had been awaiting a vote since 2017, and aimed to municipalize a program that already existed as a technical standard of the Ministry of Health.
Therefore, there wasn't anything revolutionary about the proposal, but the issue alone was enough for men to reaffirm their historic power to decide over women's lives and bodies: of all the 32 parliamentarians who voted against the bill, 31 were men. Shame on them.
Shrouded in religious discourse, they insist on ignoring the fact that Brazil is a secular state. Of course, women's individual beliefs must be respected, but what we see is that the discussion about abortion, even legalized abortion, often falls into a smokescreen that legitimizes sexism and reinforces hatred of women. Misogynists can't stand the idea of not being able to control our lives.
:: Brazil’s largest city staged a protest for the right of abortion ::
What they try to hide is that abortion is a reality and a public health issue. Giving due attention to pregnant women who seek this kind of medical procedure means taking care of their health. In Brazil, one in seven women has an abortion before the age of 40, according to the National Abortion Survey. That's why it's already regulated in 77 countries, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights. Among these countries, there is Israel, whose defense has been embraced by evangelicals. In Brazil, because they can't get adequate care in the public system, women end up resorting to clandestine clinics, whose illegal procedures are usually paid for by the same men who condemn the decriminalization of abortion.
That's what it's all about: a festival of hypocrisy. Meanwhile, the poorest women are at greater risk because they can't afford the procedure.
The discussion we had in Rio's City Council dealt specifically with the daily lives of women who can’t access even legal abortion, which is already provided for by law. In principle, because we are in a House of Laws, it is assumed that laws should be respected. However, they ignore the Penal Code, which allows abortion in three cases: when women's lives are at risk, when they are victims of rape and when the fetus is anencephalic.
In the first case, what can misogynists claim? That they think women should die? This is against the Hippocratic Code itself, the code of medical ethics. If a doctor is against legal abortion when a woman's life is at risk, if a woman dies as a result of not having an abortion, he will be held responsible, and could even have his professional registration revoked.
:: In the countryside, waters, forests and in cities: what are women's struggles? ::
In the case of a pregnancy as a result of rape, to be against abortion is to force a woman to bear the child of the man who raped her. If anyone can't feel the pain of a woman who has been raped, just think it could be your daughter, your mother, your wife. When the fetus is anencephalic, this was the result of a debate in the Supreme Court (STF, in Portuguese) based on the stories of pregnant women who gave birth to fetuses with this abnormality. It was a technical, a reasoned decision based on the Constitution.
In Rio, what we're trying to do is ensure that the public health system attends to these cases. For someone to be against humane access to legal abortion is to be against humanity. Any other logic is perversity, misogyny, violence and unconstitutionality.
Edited by: Jaqueline Deister
