(Sao Paulo) Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Sao Paulo on Saturday as demonstrations spread across Brazil against a bill that would further criminalize abortion. If passed, the law would classify termination of pregnancy after 22 weeks as homicide.
The bill, proposed by conservative lawmakers and set to be voted on in the lower house, would also apply to cases of rape. Critics say those seeking abortions so late are mostly victims of child rape, as their pregnancies tend to be detected later.
To rally opposition, rights groups created the “A Child is Not a Mother” campaign that flooded social media. Signs, stickers and banners displaying the slogan abounded during the demonstrations. And viral visuals depicting women in red coats compare Brazil to Gilead, the theocratic patriarchy that Margaret Atwood created in her dystopian novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
About 10,000 people, mostly women, filled several blocks of Sao Paulo’s main boulevard Saturday afternoon, organizers estimated. It was the largest demonstration ever, after events in Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Florianopolis, Recife, Manaus and other cities.
Many wore green clothing and scarves, a common occurrence in women’s rights mobilizations in Latin America.
Marli Gavioli, 65, has generally refrained from protesting since protests in the 1980s demanding an end to military dictatorship, but she told The Associated Press she was too outraged to stay home.
“I couldn’t stay out of it or I’d regret it too much. We women are whipped from all sides. It’s high time we did something,” she said.
Brazil only allows abortion in cases of rape if there is a clear risk to the mother’s life or if the fetus does not have a functioning brain. Aside from these exceptions, the Brazilian Penal Code imposes between one and three years in prison for women who terminate their pregnancy. Some Brazilian women fly abroad to have an abortion.
If the bill becomes law, the penalty would rise to between six and 20 years when an abortion is performed after 22 weeks. Critics have pointed out that this would mean convicted rapists could receive lower sentences than their victims.
Experts say late-term access to abortion reflects health care inequities. Children, poor women, black women and those living in rural areas are particularly at risk.
Of the 74,930 people who were raped in Brazil in 2022, 61.4% were under the age of 14, according to a 2023 study by the Brazilian Public Security Forum, an independent group that tracks crimes.
“For children, it is common for a pregnancy to be discovered only after 22 weeks,” Ivanilda Figueiredo, a law professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, explained by telephone. For example, they may not know that periods – a sign that women are not pregnant – are monthly, she pointed out.
Defenders of the bill have argued that later abortions were unimaginable when Brazil’s penal code was adopted in 1940, which is why there is currently no time limit. If this had been considered, they argue, it would be considered infanticide.
The bill’s author, lawmaker and evangelical pastor Sóstenes Cavalcante, declined an interview request from The Associated Press.
On Wednesday, the Speaker of the Lower House, Arthur Lira, rushed to adopt a procedure aimed at speeding up the adoption of the bill, while many lawmakers were apparently unaware that it was underway. The maneuver allows the plenary to vote without the bill being previously approved by the committees.
“The bill puts progressives in a very difficult situation because they are losing votes by defending the right to abortion,” said Figueiredo, the law professor.
The government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is seeking to make inroads with evangelicals, a key voting bloc for far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro. Mr. Lula defeated Mr. Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election.
“The president sent a letter to evangelicals during the campaign saying he was against abortion. We want to see if he will veto it. Let’s test Lula,” Mr. Cavalcante, the bill’s author, told local newspaper G1 on Tuesday.
First lady Rosangela da Silva, known as Janja, criticized the proposal on social media Friday, saying raped women and girls must be protected and not re-victimized. Mr. Lula finally spoke on Saturday at the G7 in Italy.
“I had five children, eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild. I am against abortion. However, since abortion is a reality, we must treat abortion as a public health issue,” he said at a press conference. “And I think it’s madness that anyone would want to punish a woman with a longer sentence than the criminal who committed the rape. »
Although strict abortion laws have long been the norm in the predominantly Catholic Latin American region, feminist movements have gained momentum in recent years and won successive victories for rights activists. ‘abortion. Colombia’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in 2022, following a similar ruling by Mexico.
