'Children Are Not Mothers': What is at stake with Brazil bill that equates abortion after 22 weeks of pregnancy to homicide
A bill signed by 32 deputies intends to equate any abortion performed in Brazil after 22 weeks of pregnancy with the crime of homicide.
The rule would even apply to cases in which the procedure is authorized by Brazilian legislation, such as pregnancy resulting from rape.
Bill 1904/2024, whose first author is congressman Sóstenes Cavalcante (Liberal Party - Rio de Janeiro), adds a few paragraphs to four articles of the Brazilian Penal Code, which was established in 1940.
Article 124 of the Civil Code, for example, already establishes as a crime "causing oneself to have an abortion or allowing someone else to do so."
But, according to the new proposal being discussed in the Chamber of Deputies, "when there is fetal viability, presumed in pregnancies over 22 weeks, the penalties will be applied in accordance with the crime of simple homicide."
On Wednesday night (June 12th, 2024), Brazil's Chamber of Deputies approved the urgency regime for processing the project, which was requested by congressman Eli Borges (LIberal Party - Tocantins) — who also signed the document.
This means that the proposal can be voted directly by the plenary of the Chamber, without the need for debates and opinions in thematic committees of Congress.
With this, the Plenary can vote on the project in the coming days. The urgent request was included on the agenda by the President of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (Progressive Party - Aladoas).
Bill 1904/2024 intends to change some articles of the Penal Code, with the aim of preventing any abortion from occurring when the pregnancy exceeds 22 weeks.
Currently, Brazilian law allows abortion in three situations:
When the pregnancy is the result of rape;
If the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman’s life;
If the fetus is anencephalic, a condition characterized by the absence of the brain and skullcap.
In an article published on the website of the Brazilian Center for Health Studies (Cebes), doctor Ana Costa, executive director of the institution, classifies the bill as "a reissue of the 'Rapist Statute', which obliges women to become pregnant as a result of rape under penalty of imprisonment".
Cebes also highlights that late access to legal abortion "reflects inequality and inequity in health care, particularly impacting children (10-14 years old), poor women, black women, and those living in rural areas."
A group of 18 entities in the sector came together to create the "Children Are Not Mothers" campaign, which characterizes the changes proposed in the law as the "Child Pregnancy Bill".
According to the creators of the movement, the change in legislation will mainly harm children under 14 years of age, who represent the largest group that needs abortion services after the third trimester.
According to them, in this age group — in which any pregnancy is the result of presumed rape — it takes longer to discover or even identify a pregnancy.
Furthermore, in two thirds of cases, the perpetrator of the rape is from the girl's own family — which inhibits the victim from seeking health services or reporting the crime to authorities in the first weeks of pregnancy.
The campaign also highlights that the eventual change in the law will mean that those involved in abortion could be convicted of the crime of simple homicide, with a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
Meanwhile, the legislation establishes a sentence of around 10 years — or half the time — for the crime of rape.
According to the Brazilian Public Security Yearbook, 74,930 people were raped in Brazil in 2022. Of these, 88.7% of the victims were female and around 60% were at most 13 years old.
DataSUS reports that, in 2019, around 70 pregnancies were legally terminated in Brazilian children and adolescents under the age of 14.
The campaign warns that, if approved, the project "will force girls who are victims of violence to continue their pregnancy" and this will mean a setback "to the sexual and reproductive rights guaranteed by law since 1940."
What supporters of the bill say
The project being discussed in the Chamber argues that the Penal Code, established in 1940, does not establish this limit of 22 weeks because "a last-trimester abortion was an unthinkable reality [at that time] and, if it were possible, no one would call it an abortion, but homicide or infanticide".
The text of the project also argues that "to grant women the right to terminate pregnancy, regardless of gestational age, and whatever the weight of the unborn child, it was necessary to subvert the basic principles of the Rule of Law, the same ones that gave rise to to American Independence and modern democracy."
According to the deputies' proposal, people involved in an abortion after 22 weeks of gestation — such as the woman and the health professional — can be convicted of the crime of simple homicide.
Currently, sentences for simple homicide in Brazil range from 6 to 20 years in prison.
On social media, congressman Sóstenes Cavalcante wrote that Bill 1904 "aims to consider late-term abortion as homicide, reinforcing the protection of life from conception."
The project was filed on May 17th. That same day, the minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), Alexandre de Moraes, had suspended a resolution from the Federal Council of Medicine (CFM) that prohibited the so-called fetal asystole.
This procedure, recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the stages of abortion resulting from rape in the last trimester of pregnancy, uses medications to stop the fetal heartbeat before it is removed from the uterus.
According to Moraes, the CFM resolution exceeded the regulatory competence of the council and imposed "both on the medical professional and the pregnant victim of rape a restriction of rights not provided for by law capable of creating concrete and significantly worrying embarrassments for women's health" .
The STF minister also recalled that Brazilian legislation does not stipulate any "circumstantial, procedural, or temporal" limitations for carrying out the abortion provided for by law.
Moraes's decision was preliminary and will be discussed in the future in the Supreme Court plenary. The CFM also appealed the minister's opinion.
Source, translated by the blogger.
