Abortion in Brazil

According to Brazil’s 2016 National Abortion Survey, abortion is a common practice, and the method most frequently used to perform an abortion is Misoprostol, a medicine the World Health Organization recommended for safe abortions. Although hospitalization is sometimes necessary to complete the abortion, this figure is decreasing, suggesting that, despite legal restrictions and repression, women are increasingly using safer methods to have an abortion.

Inducing an abortion on oneself or consenting to it by another: Penalty – detention, from one to three years.

CP – Decreto Lei n° 2.848 de 07 Dezembro de 1940: Artigo 124

Induced abortion in Brazil is still regulated as a crime, with penalties of 1 to 3 years of imprisonment for the pregnant woman and 1 to 4 years for the doctor or any other person who performs the fetus removal procedure on someone else. In fact, the regulation states that there is a minimum of one year of detention to be expected when performing an abortion. The abortion law in Brazil has been in use since 1940¹ and can be found in the Penal Code, specifically in Art. 124 of Law N 2.848.

Legal exceptions to punishment after an abortion in Brazil

There are only three cases in which a person can get access to abortion services without being punished (art. 124-127):

Rape-caused pregnancy

Imminent danger to the pregnant woman’s life

Under circumstances of anencephaly

Decreto Lei n° 2.848 de 07 Dezembro de 1940: Artigo 124-127

Although the abortion law in Brazil grants legalality in three exceptions, information by the Brazilian feminist magazine AzMina from October 2020 indicates that various hospitals stopped providing the service of abortion.

However, according to the SUS’s Norma Técnica: Humanized Abortion, it is the State’s responsibility to provide abortion services in public hospitals, within the legal exceptions. Access to this right is not always guaranteed.

According to a survey released by IPEC in September 2022, most respondents oppose abortion, with the opposition composed primarily of evangelicals, elementary school graduates, and Midwestern residents.

However, a sizable portion of the population favours abortion rights, predominantly between the ages of 16 and 24, the college-educated, and people with no religion or who are not evangelical or Catholic.

An independent study by Debora Diniz and Marcelo Madeiro provides demographic data on women who have requested legal abortions. During 2013 and 2015, they analysed 1,283 medical records of women who had legal abortions at five services in five regions of the country. Providing an estimate of the number and the demographic profile of abortion seekers in the country² [7].

In that study, the methodology was based on the report provided by the public health service. To continue understanding who is seeking and accessing legal abortion services, it is imperative to maintain up-to-date data, and a complete registered [7].

An essential finding of the study run by Diniz and Madeiros (one of the studies with the highest comprehension of demographic characteristics of abortion seekers in Brazil) was that most women who have access to legal abortion services are white. Nevertheless, according to information provided by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica, black women have twice the number of unsafe abortions as white women.

Greice Menezes, in the Brazilian magazine Azmina, explained that black women are underrepresented regarding access to legal abortion due to problems related to institutional racism [9].

In addition, Diniz’s and Mandeiros’ study found that many girls under 14 seek abortion services. In Brazil, child sexual violence is a significant issue, and it is important to emphasize the right of girls to access legal services and the need for a response from the state to safeguard their lives.

There is a determining relationship between abortion and cultural conditions in Brazil. Women live in a state of socioeconomic inequality that translates into factors such as less access to education, decent housing, and contraceptive methods, among others. In addition, structural racism, which places black women under greater vulnerability, makes the situation even worse. In this way, cultural, social, and economic conditions lead to a lack of access to the public health system, generating more significant risks of unsafe abortion⁴.

Legal abortion by telemedicine

In Brazil, telemedicine abortion is being practised as a solution to isolation and lockdown in cases of sexual violence. The program was initiated by the Núcleo de Atenção Integral a Vítimas de Agressão Sexual (Nuavidas) in the Hospital de Clínicas in Uberlândia.

The services reported that as of April 2021, 15 women terminated their pregnancies using their services⁵. However, in contrast to reports of sexual violence, this number appears to be considerably low.

Although the SUS collects general data about abortion within the health system, much important information is only delivered thanks to NGOs (non-governmental organizations). However, to draw a complete picture of the abortion situation in Brazil, studies would require answering the following questions.

[1] Acento (2021) El aborto legal por telemedicina se abre paso en Brasil. Acento https://acento.com.do/actualidad/el-aborto-legal-por-telemedicina-se-abre-paso-en-brasil-8938183.html Jan, 28 2022.

[2]

[3] CLACAI (2017) Mifepristona y misoprostol en seis paises de America Latina.

[4] Departamento de Saúde Comunitária, Universidade Federal do Ceará. Fortaleza, CE – Brasil (W.F., L.L.C.); Maternal and Child Epidemiology Unit. London School of Higiene and Tropical Medicine, UK (C.M.); Hospital Geral César Cals. Fortaleza, CE – Brasil (J.A.M.P.); Maternidade Escola Assis Chateaubriand da Universidade Federal do Ceará. Fortaleza, CE – Brasil.

[5] Diniz, D., Medeiros, M. (2012) Itineraries and methods of illegal abortion in five Brazilian state capitals Ciência & Saúde Coletiva, 17(7):1671-1681.

[6] Diniz, D., Medeiros, M., Madeiro, A., Universidade de Brasília,  Brasil, Universidade de Brasília,  Brasil, Universidade Estadual do Piauí,  Brasil, 2017. Pesquisa Nacional de Aborto 2016. Ciênc. Saúde Coletiva 22, 653–660. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-81232017222.23812016

[7]

[8] Freitas, J. E. P. D., 2020. Abortion Is A Fundamental Right—Brazil Is Failing To Fully Recognise It. Human Rights Pulse, 19 Septiembre.

[9] Folego, T. (2017) “Criminalização do aborto mata mais mulheres negras”. Revista Azmina https://azmina.com.br/reportagens/precisamos-falar-de-aborto-e-como-ele-mata-mulheres-negras/ Jan, 28 2022.

[10] Key Facts on Abortion, n.d. . Amnesty https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/sexual-and-reproductive-rights/abortion-facts/  Jan, 28 2022.

[11] Hardy, E., & Rebello, I. (1996). La discusión sobre el aborto provocado en el Congreso Nacional Brasileño: el papel del movimiento de mujeres. Cadernos de Saúde Pública, 12, 259-266.

[13] Sethna, C., & Davis, G. (Eds.). (2019). Abortion across borders: Transnational travel and access to abortion services. JHU Press.

[14] Murray, L., & Khan, N. (2020). The im/mobilities of ‘sometimes-migrating’for abortion: Ireland to Great Britain. Mobilities, 15(2), 161-172.

[15]

1. Hardy, E., & Rebello, I. (1996). La discusión sobre el aborto provocado en el Congreso Nacional Brasileño: el papel del movimiento de mujeres. Cadernos de Saúde Pública, 12, 259-266. ↩︎
2. Madeiro, A.P., Diniz, D., 2016. Serviços de aborto legal no Brasil – um estudo nacional. Ciênc. Saúde Coletiva 21, 563–572. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-81232015212.10352015 ↩︎
3. Aiken, A., Lohr, P. A., Lord, J., Ghosh, N., & Starling, J. (2021). Effectiveness, safety and acceptability of no-test medical abortion (termination of pregnancy) provided via telemedicine: a national cohort study. BJOG : an international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology, 128(9), 1464–1474. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0528.16668 ↩︎
4. Fusco, C. L., & Andreoni, S. (2012). Unsafe abortion: social determinants and health inequities in a vulnerable population in São Paulo, Brazil. Cadernos de Saúde Pública, 28, 709-719. ↩︎
5. Acento (2021) El aborto legal por telemedicina se abre paso en Brasil. Acento https://acento.com.do/actualidad/el-aborto-legal-por-telemedicina-se-abre-paso-en-brasil-8938183.html Jan, 28 2022. ↩︎

Abortion in Brazil

• 1Law & Regulation
• 2Facts & Numbers
• 3The public opinion
• 4Abortion seekers
• 5Abortion Methods
• 6Cultural context
• 7Impact of COVID-19
• 8What we don't know
• 9Sources