BEYOND THE LAW LEGAL ABORTION IN BRAZIL Abortion in Brazil is a major social problem, it is a public health problem, it is a matter of social injustice, of profound inequality and violation of human rights. The illegality of abortion leads to its clandestinity. Its clandestinity leads to its insecurity.
Insecurity leads to the selective death of women. Therefore, the conclusion I reach in this article is that if the criminal law of 1940 was intended to protect the life of the fetus and the pregnant woman’s, it produces a perverse impact, because in the end they both die, in general, especially if low-income women, who use the most outdated and unsafe methods to terminate unwanted pregnancies. We’re not discussing abortion in another field, we are discussing abortion in the field of positive law, as we call it, the right that is given.
So, it is recognizing that we have this in Brazilian law, which is the Penal Code, that at the same time criminalizes abortion, while recognizes two exceptional cases, which are: in case of risk to the pregnant woman’s life or in case of rape. I leave late at evening from work, I always leave late. And at night, especially in winter, it's always very dark and I have to walk two blocks to the bus stop, when I get back.
And then, on that day, there was no one at the bus stop and it was very cold that day, and the stop was empty, and I was there waiting for a bus. Then, after a while, I saw two men walking towards me. I went to a party at a friend's house from high school and I never thought anything bad would happen there, you know?
And I also remember that, at night, after my mother went to sleep, my father would go to our bedroom. And then I told her that I didn't want to be around him, you know? That I wanted to stay away from him.
but she thought it was silly from me, that it was all in my head. And it happened that, when I was 14 years old, 14 to 15 years old, I got pregnant for the first time, pre gnant from my father. In relation to sexual violence, there is a very strong myth that this kind of violence occurs mostly on the streets, on public roads.
In fact, it does happen there, but it has no place and no social class to happen, it affects or can reach all women, but the largest and most expressive number of sexual violence occurs within the family itself. The vast majority of women who don’t register these events of sexual abuse, rape, violence, they don’t do it because they are too afraid of being poorly treated. They are afraid of being embarrassed there at the police station or by the military brigade, if they call the military brigade, right?
So, it’s mainly for this reason that we have a very large hidden figure of sexual violence prevalence. ARCHIVE OF THE SPECIALIZED PUBLIC SERVICE FOR WOMEN PORTO ALEGRE RS He was very agressive. He spoke harshly to me, pulled my hair, slapped me.
. . She reported the attacks to the police, but nothing came of it.
And she ended up getting back to him, because she thought she was unable to raise the child. I started to avoid him, then I was out of home on the street, you know? So, until late, as much as I could I stayed on the street.
I kept wandering sometimes, stayed at the bus stop, waiting. But he used to wait for me and when I got home, he was awake, and then he hit me. The later I arrived, the more he hit me.
And my mother then said that it was better if this matter didn't leave the house, you know? Couldn't speak. 572 THOUSAND PEOPLE ARE RAPPED IN BRAZIL PER YEAR 89% OF THE VICTIMS ARE FEMALE SOURCE - IPEA 2014 Where are you going?
And then I saw that he had a gun and then he told me not to run, not to scream because otherwise he would shoot me. At first, I thought they were going to rob me there, that they were going to take my purse, my cell phone. By the time I arrived there, people were already a little drunk, they were even a little crazy.
And I got into the mood, and drank a little too and stuff. Until I started to feel a little sick and I went to the toillet, then I threw up and I was a little dizzy. Then someone took me to a room, and I passed out.
One of them threw me to the ground, pushed me like this, and I fell to the ground and then he ripped off my pants, took my panties off with force, you know? He had a lot of strength. Then.
. . Then I woke up when they were taking my clothes off.
It was this boy. Then they left, leaving me there. I got dressed and went walking like that, even though I was dizzy and hurt like that.
And I went home. This boy was my classmate forever, since kindergarten. When we look at the issue of gender violence in general, we never look at the aggressor, at the man, but always to the woman.
What did she do to deserve this, huh? But could it be that she wasn't there "being easy"? What was she doing at dawn at that time on the street?
So it's always a look at the woman and never at that aggressor. So it's the whole time judging this woman about what she did or if she’s really telling the truth. Sexist thinking often prevails, if the woman suffered sexual violence, it was because she provoked it.
So, if you suffered violence then you have to deal with the consequences. This is all very, very sad and very humiliating for women to go through this whole situation. I only had one friend, that kept being friends with me, and at one day, after a while, she called me and said: look, I want to show you something And she came with that video on her cell phone.
And the video was showing me lying there, with no clothes on, and then I saw that it wasn't just that one boy. There were more people, you know? And they were laughing and.
. it wasn't just people from school either, you know? We have a Penal Code that dates back to 1940, which established that it is not a crime to have an abortion in the circumstances when a pregnancy is a result of rape.
It is not a crime, it is established by law. But, uh. .
Since 1940 until almost 1990, there was no initiative, no policy, no regulation by the Brazilian state, in the field of health, guiding how health services should proceed in these circumstances. So what did we have? We had the law giving this right to women and we had a complete absence of the state in the field of health on how to proceed in these circumstances.
Law 12,845, from last year, 2013, is intended to ensure that all public hospitals, from the SUS, can offer, in fact, it is mandatory to provide comprehensive care for people who are in a situation of sexual violence. So what does that mean? That this one person who suffered sexual violence, they have the right to go to a hospital and that hospital has to prepared to receive them.
It has to be prepared to be able to welcome you with a multidisciplinary team. The law states about this, that there must be psychologists, social workers, that is, all the areas that will be able to provide care to this person. In addition, all prophylaxis must be guaranteed, that is, anti-HIV cocktails, and the issue of pregnancy too, that is, the morning-after pill or emergency contraception.
So that we can ensure that, later, this woman doesn't have to access a legal abortion service. An estimated 22 million unsafe abortions are performed worldwide. At least one out of every five women has had an irregular abortion.
When I turned 18, I got pregnant again, you know, from him. But then it was no longer possible to have an abortion at the clinic, and there was no money or anything. And I had heard that there’re women who have an abortion with a needle, you know, a knitting needle.
And ok, and then I say, I'm going to do this, right? I took a needle and did, you know, I stuck it in there and. .
. my mom helped me, you know? She came and helped me.
But it just didn't work, it really didn't work out! There was a lot of blood, I just remember it like that, that I was a very bloody and then my mother took me to the hospital. I passed out I got there fainted.
There are a series of protocols, a series of campaigns, a series of initiatives, there is a lot of healthcare for people who suffer sexual violence, but when that woman is in the most serious situation of all, which in addition to having suffered rape, you know, being pregnant from this violence, which for these women works as a second intolerable violence to be maintained until the end, and when she seeks the healthcare sector, it’s exactly when she finds, many times, closed doors, right? It is what I call in this case a perversion of law. It is abstractly guaranteed there, but it's not put into effect because of stereotypes or because of some negative view one have about the person who is there, the concrete person.
We have a very complex situation with regard to the exercise of this right and there’s the risk of even having a setback in relation to this policy in Brazil. If a legislation is made based upon a religious principle, it will be discriminating - which is unconstitutional all other groups in society, whether people, as I said, are believers from other groups, from other religions, other than the one whose doctrine is in the legislation, that is, of those who say they don’t base their lives on any religious value. Even if I’m against abortion, you know, and I am, because I am in favour of life, but I need to have this professional awareness that I must clarify the person in front of me about all the resources they have, huh?
Not only the very legal abortion, but the resource that a woman has to keep the pregnancy with psychological care, and, if she doesn’t want to keep that child that is the result of violence, that she has the legal conditions to deliver that child for adoption the moment of childbirth. 13% of maternal deaths worldwide occur, each year, because of these unsafe abortions. I started to feel bad, like, nauseous and a little dizzy, until my parents decided to take me to the Emergency Room.
And then they examined me, and they found out that I was pregnant. I decided to do one of those pharmacy tests, you know. Then I was at work, bought the test and did it.
And then it came back positive. I was shaking, like, I turned white, you know. And a friend of mine, a colleague of mine from work saw it and asked me what was going on.
And then I hugged her and then I said, I told her, you know,. . .
for the first time I told someone Failuring to recognize that this woman has the option or right to choose to terminate this pregnancy or not is a violation of human rights, and of the sexual and reproductive rights of these women. And, therefore, it is unethical for you to demand from this woman that a process that takes place in her body, she is forced to continue with it. So, with respect to what we women are, we are this body of ours that allows us to get pregnant and, therefore, only we can decide what we want to do or what we don't want to do with this body that allows us to do this thing that is to make another human being.
I wanted to tell this story, you know, to try to help other women who were going through the same thing. When it happened to me, I thought I had nothing to do, you know, that there was no way out. Today I know that there is, today I know that I can go somewhere, that I can ask for help.
So, I wanted other women to know that you can do this, so you can ask for help. I know, I'm free. THE DRAMATIZED SELF-REPORTS IN THIS FILM ARE BASED ON REAL STORIES.
THIS RESEARCH WAS CARRIED OUT IN REFERENCE CENTERS AGAINST VIOLENCE TO WOMEN IN RIO GRANDE DO SUL. How to resume this issue of gender and the sexual and reproductive rights of women and adolescents in a way that would not remain restricted to, closed on the university campus, in a classroom or in a written and scientific text that few would have access to? And there came the idea of thinking about a kind of intervention.
So aligning the theoretical research project, and the empirical research with a social intervention, that could raise comprehensive awareness about these issues. In order to do this, I have to start from the assumption of the insufficiency of the law, that the law is insufficient for many things. It is very important, it has a lot of symbolic power, it is fundamental in the recognition of rights, but it’s language does not reach people that much, or does not reach, many times, on the purpose of awareness.
And I think that with a documentary, and through videos or through booklets, other communication tools, we can reach a greater number of people. So therefore the idea of thinking about this documentary.
