The Fetal Rights Bill and the Rise of the Pro-Life Movement in Brazil
DEVELOPMENTS
Since the end of the military dictatorship in 1985, the Brazilian government has struggled to establish a government that reflects the consensus of its citizens. In the context of reproductive and fetal rights, the will of the people is far from clear. In recent history, however, the pro-life movement has picked up speed. Aside from its focus on fetal rights, its platform also incorporates concerns about women’s health, advocating for the allocation of government resources to, what it contends, are more pressing women’s health issues than abortion. Their most recent accomplishment is the obtainment of a favorable vote by the Brazilian House of Representatives’ Family and Social Security Commission on a bill that would criminalize any act or omission that harms a fertilized ovum. The bill explicitly grants an “absolute priority” to the fertilized ovum over the woman carrying it, even in the case of rape.
Advocates of the law wish to change the common experience of abortion in Brazil, where one in five women has an abortion. Critics of the bill claim that the protection of the fetus is at the expense of the health and welfare of the woman, and that women will be afraid to seek medical care, fearing criminal prosecution. With the rate of sexual abuse high, the provision protecting an ova fertilized by rape will likely boost the number of illegal, unsafe abortions. An estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 illegal abortions take place annually, resulting in the hospitalization of about 200,000 Brazilian women every year.
BACKGROUND
The Brazilian pro-life movement gained momentum thirteen years ago, when Pope Benedict XVI fueled the debate during his visit. Tolerance for illegal abortions diminished and clinical records were used to arrest women who allegedly had illegal abortions. In recent years, legislation has flooded the Brazilian Congress, including initiatives to eliminate the rape exception, categorize abortion as a “hideous crime,” and provide financial incentives to women who conceived during rape to give birth and raise the child.
While many of these proposals are not novel, the arguments propagated by this movement are rather innovative. Instead of relying on a set of moral principles, the movement is fueled by the idea that the government should focus on more detrimental threats to pregnant women’s health. Namely, members are focused on high blood pressure, which causes the majority of deaths of pregnant women. This argument echoes that of the decriminalization movement, which focuses on the health implications of driving abortions underground: unsafe abortions cause 25% of pregnancy-related deaths and are the fifth-highest cause of hospitalization in the country.
The policy debate takes place in the context of on ongoing, fragile negotiation between President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other powerful political players over the country’s Human Rights Program, known as III National Program for Human Rights Policies. The most formidable player in this negotiation may be the Catholic Church.
The Church boasts 74% of the Brazilian population as followers of the faith, and has earned the loyalty of many people as a result of its advocacy for individual rights during the dictatorship. It is notable, however, that the number of self-identifying Catholics fell from 83% of the population in 1991 to 73% in 2000.
The Church has been unequivocal in its stance to protect the ovum, as demonstrated by the case of a nine-year-old girl who was carrying twins, fathered by her step-father. Her mother and doctors decided an abortion was proper, given the medical risks of birth and the circumstances of conception. The Catholic Church responded by claiming a caesarian section was the right course and an archbishop excommunicated the mother and doctors – but not the step-father. President Lula’s ability to preserve laïcité, the secularity of the state, has weakened in recent years. This, in turn, has strengthened the Church’s ability to influence policy. President Lula maintains that he is personally against abortion, but in favor of the amendment of the penal code. However, on March 16th of this year, the Secretary of Human Rights said that the program’s provision on the legalization of abortion would be amended or deleted. The Secretary also stated that government would not permit abortions on the principle of a “woman’s autonomy.” It has been alleged that President Lula subverted his efforts to decriminalize abortion in exchange for the Church’s support, in the midst of a corruption scandal.
The pro-life movement has another advantage: another participant in the negotiations, the Brazilian citizenry, is largely uninformed in regard to reproductive laws and health. Thus, the public is not prepared for this significant debate. Most illustrative is a survey of Brazilian OB-GYNs: about half of respondents did not know the law governing abortions. The implications of this are very real. First, patients are unable to get reliable information from their doctors, causing a ripple of misinformation throughout communities. And, second, of those that had performed abortions, “most had done so under circumstances not explicitly permitted by law at the time of data collection.” In fact, the second most employed form of birth control, sterilization, was not explicitly permitted until recently and, even then, only in limited circumstances. About a quarter of women who chose this method also believed it was easy to undo and many did not have another choice: some employers, in an effort to evade employee benefits, demand proof of sterilization before offering employment to women. Most often, poor, black women are encouraged to adopt this method of contraception.
The President’s ability to push through this agenda is further debilitated by resistance to other parts of the program, rooted in the military, which demands the preservation of an Amnesty Law that excused human rights abuses during the dictatorship. The political drama is also heightened in light of the upcoming October 2010 Presidential election, although no candidate has officially supported the enforcement of the decriminalization of abortion.
ANALYSIS
Given the current political climate in Brazil, it is quite possible that the pro-life movement will pass a law further restricting abortions. However, that does not mean that a change in behavior will follow. Currently, one-fifth of Brazilian women have chosen to end a pregnancy. Up to 1,000,000 Brazilian women have an illegal abortion annually. Thus, the pro-life movement, to achieve its goals, will have to do more than just change a law.
What both sides of this debate are missing is that their aims are not wholly incompatible. Even in this torn country, condoms, contraceptives, and other forms of birth control are free. Assume that the goal of the pro-life movement can be summarized as the reduction of abortions, and the goal of the pro-choice movement is to give women control over their body and to protect their health – a huge barrier to both of these goals is that women are not educated about their contraceptive options. In addition, extreme poverty has driven many women to terminate pregnancies. Abortion is the only option many disadvantaged women know of, aside from sterilization, and the way some women can survive in Brazil’s socio-economic structure. The result is that women are forced into becoming mothers or, in view of the statute, criminals. The reality is that women have no choice and no control.
While it is highly unlikely that these two groups will ever agree to the circumstances of when abortion should be legal, both have the potential to further their agenda. But if women are denied the knowledge they need to exert control over their bodies and deprived of the opportunity to support themselves, this will not be possible.
The risk the pro-life movement makes is that, with accurate information and financial power, the women of Brazil might rally against them. But that’s a risk that any interest group takes in a democracy. A law will not be obeyed unless the affected group is brought into the conversation – regardless of the metric used for defining life, an ovum is within the body of a woman. The woman, in any law, in any society, should not be ignored.
Melissa Rassas is an attorney licensed in New York and New Jersey. She received her Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and her Bachelor of Art’s degree in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences.
