Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of São Paulo on Saturday as protests swept across Brazil in opposition to a bill that would further criminalize abortions. If passed, the law would equate the termination of a pregnancy after 22 weeks with homicide.
The bill, proposed by conservative lawmakers and heading for a vote in the lower house, would also apply in cases of rape. Critics say those who seek an abortion so late are mostly child rape victims, as their pregnancies tend to be detected later.
To rally opposition, rights’ groups created the ‘A child is not a mother’ campaign that has flooded social media. Placards, stickers and banners emblazoned with the slogan have abounded during demonstrations. And viral visuals depicting women in red cloaks compare Brazil to Gilead, the theocratic patriarchy Margaret Atwood created in her dystopian novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
About 10,000 people, mostly women, filled several blocks of São Paulo’s main boulevard on Saturday afternoon, organizers estimated. It was the biggest demonstration yet, following events in Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, Florianopolis, Recife, Manaus, and other cities. Many wore green clothes and scarves, a common sight in women’s rights mobilizations across Latin America.
Marli Gavioli, 65, has mostly refrained from protesting since demonstrations in the 1980s that called for the end of the military dictatorship, but she told The Associated Press she’s too outraged to remain home.
“I couldn’t stay out of this, or I would regret it too much. We are being whipped from all sides, us women. It’s past time we do something,” she said.
Brazil only permits abortion in cases of rape if there is an evident risk to the mother’s life or if the fetus has no functioning brain. Aside from those exceptions, Brazil’s penal code imposes between one and three years jail time for women who end a pregnancy. Some Brazilian women fly abroad in order to obtain abortions.
If the bill becomes law, the sentence would rise to between six and 20 years when an abortion is performed after 22 weeks. Critics have highlighted that would mean convicted rapists could receive lesser sentences than their victims.
Experts say that late access to abortion reflects inequalities in health care. Children, poor women, Black women and those living in rural areas are particularly at risk.
“We cannot be sentenced to prison for having suffered a rape and not receiving support and care,” Talita Rodrigues, a member of rights’ group National Front against the Criminalization of Women and for the Legalization of Abortion, said by phone.
Of the 74,930 people who were victims of rape in Brazil in 2022, 61.4% were under 14 years old, according to a 2023 study of the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, an independent group that tracks crimes.
“For children, it is common for a pregnancy to be discovered only after 22 weeks,” Ivanilda Figueiredo, a professor of law at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said by phone. For example, they might not know that periods — a sign women aren’t pregnant — are monthly, she said.
