Brazil’s Abortion Battle

The Brazilian right's efforts to destroy abortion rights are key to their broader crusade against the Left.

A protest against anti-abortion legislation in Belo Horizonte, Brazil on November 11, 2017. Mídia NINJA / Flickr


Brazil’s right wing has gotten ahead through a series of dirty tricks. The 2015 impeachment of Workers Party (PT) president Dilma Rousseff, pushed through despite the absence of any “crime of responsibility,” is the most notorious example. Now, through similarly slick manuevers, they’re seeking further restrictions on reproductive rights. This, in a country where already one woman dies from a clandestine abortion procedure every nine minutes.

Currently, abortion is legal only in particular cases, such as when there’s a direct threat to the life of the pregnant person, or when the pregnancy results from rape. It’s these exceptions that the conservative and Evangelical parliamentary front is seeking to destroy. Through a variety of proposed bills and amendments, they may eliminate the right to abortion completely.

One proposal sought to establish conception as the moment when life begins. But that was taking too long, so the front decided to push their agenda through a different bill, called PEC 181, which would extend maternity leave for mothers of premature babies.

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