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Jun 30, 20214 min read

What is the state of reproductive rights in Brazil?

By: Lakshmi Sunder


When comparing the United States to Brazil, it is natural to see the parallels in American policy under former President Trump and Brazilian policy under its current president, Jair Bolsonaro.


These parallels are especially seen in the two presidents’ misogynist attitudes towards women, with Trump notably saying that his star status allows him to “grab women” by their genitalia and giving his primary opponent the epithet “nasty women,” and with Bolsonaro saying directly to Brazilian congresswoman Maria del Rosario, “I wouldn’t rape you because you don’t deserve it.” When speaking of his family at Rio de Janeiro’s Hebraica Club in April of 2017, Bolsonaro said that “in a moment of weakness” his fifth child came out a girl.


These personal views of women are also reflected in the two presidents’ policies towards reproductive rights for those assigned females at birth. The two nations even joined a coalition in 2020 with Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Egypt, Indonesia, and Uganda to co-sponsor a nonbinding international anti-abortion declaration, the Geneva Consensus Declaration, that went against the UN’s promotion of abortion access internationally.


While proponents of reproductive rights in the US believe that Biden’s presidency will lead to a loosening of abortion restrictions - already seen in the Biden administration’s decision to mail abortion pills during the pandemic - Brazil is still under Bolsonaro’s administration and is increasingly turning away from reproductive rights.



What is Brazil’s current stance on reproductive rights and sex education?


Abortion is effectively illegal in Brazil unless the pregnancy was caused by rape, which requires the victim to testify in court, or if the pregnancy will cause the person to die. However, as seen in nations across the globe, this doesn’t stop women from having unsafe abortions in Brazil. People have increasingly turned to the use of needles, herbs, and even throwing themselves off of staircases to induce abortion. Some Brazilians also go to clandestine clinics to get abortions done - the doctors at these clinics risk losing their licenses, and this route is generally only available to upper-class Brazilians who can afford it. Many often have to travel long distances to more liberal areas of Brazil to reach these clinics.


Self-induced abortions often result in hospitalization due to their safety risks. 250,000 Brazilians were hospitalized after having illegal abortions in 2016. Under Bolsonaro’s presidency, there are only 42 public hospitals that offer abortions legally in a country where roughly 500,000 people have abortions every year. There was nearly double the number of hospitals prior to his presidency. In 2019, 26,000 abortion pills brought into the country were confiscated, compared to 9,000 confiscated in 2014 (before Bolsonaro’s presidency). This severe restriction on reproductive rights has only been exacerbated by Covid-19 as federal funding was even more curtailed for abortion care and contraception.


This worsening of reproductive rights is large in part due to the Bolsonaro administration’s support base, which has many devout Catholics and Christian evangelicals. Many evangelicals support criminalizing abortion (even if the pregnancy resulted from rape), reducing funding for pediatric women’s clinics, and making sex education more abstinence-based, though not all evangelicals do. Evangelism has been on the rise in Brazil - 28% of Brazilians consider themselves to be evangelical, and 93 of 513 lower house representatives are aligned with evangelical churches. In fact, Brazil’s Minister of Women, Family, and Human Rights, Damares Alves, is an evangelical pastor who had said that she is “terribly Christian” and wants Brazil to be “free of abortion.” Alves is supportive of abstinence-only sex education.


Sex education is a crucial element of informing women of their reproductive rights, but much like in many states in the US, it has been filtered under Bolsonaro. It is largely abstinence-based, and sex education booklets for teenage girls have been censored so they don’t discuss female sex organs or contraceptives like condoms and birth control.


While reproductive rights aren’t extensive in Brazil, there are a few politicians under Bolsonaro’s administration that have expressed something close to pro-choice values. This includes Vice President Hamilton Murão, who said that if a person is pregnant from rape or is unable to support a child “...then perhaps the woman should be free to come and say, ‘I need to have an abortion.’” But this was apparently his opinion as a Brazilian citizen, not a government official. Despite stances like this from someone as high up in the government as the Vice President, Bolsonaro has said that he will veto any bill approved by Congress that expands access to abortion. Even so, this brings hope to advocates of reproductive rights for Brazilian women.


Other countries in Latin America are trying to improve reproductive rights, notably Argentina, which has taken strides to expand abortion access and even legalize it under President Alberto Fernández. The attitude in Brazil towards abortion cases was previously seen in Argentina prior to its increased progressivism. In Brazil, few abortion cases are taken to a higher court compared to other countries, and prison sentences against people who get abortions are not common. Dr. Livia Guimarães, a women’s rights lawyer, explains that of the 30 important abortion cases against those who got abortions that have been taken to the top court in São Paulo, five were closed on grounds of insufficient evidence, and some victims were even financially compensated.


Because of this, reproductive rights activists hope that Brazil is on an upward trend towards making abortion accessible and making sex education comprehensive and inclusive. However, as of now, reproductive rights in Brazil are insubstantial.



Discussion Questions:

  • How does the state of reproductive rights in Brazil reflect a greater Latin American trend?

  • How has Bolsonaro’s limitation of democratic rights such as protest worsened the fight to expand reproductive rights?

  • What demographics in Brazil are generally in support of more progressive reproductive legislation?

  • How are “pro-life” activists in the US similar to and different from those in Brazil, especially when it comes to religious denomination?

  • How can global citizens petition their governments to support the reproductive rights of Brazilians?


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