Popular Pressure Stopped an Abortion Ban in Brazil

When people mobilize, we secure new rights – or, as was the case in the U.S. this past election, we at least win back some rights we already had. This past spring, Brazilians mobilized to stop an abortion ban and guarantee a right that was first secured nearly 85 years ago.

In late February, Brazil’s Ministry of Health suspended a Technical Note that instructed professionals to ensure legal abortion access. A resolution from the Federal Council of Medicine also prohibited doctors from performing abortions after 22 weeks – a limit that isn’t arbitrary, but the exact gestational age of a 10-year-old girl who, in 2020, was almost denied abortion care. By the end of March, two doctors were suspended in São Paulo for not obeying the rule.

The right to have an abortion at any gestational age when the pregnancy is the result of rape has been secured since 1940 by the Brazilian Penal Code, but it doesn’t mean that all who seek abortion care can find it: only three hospitals in the country perform abortions after 22 weeks. This procedure, called “fetal asystole,” involves stopping the fetal heartbeat before inducing labor. Yet, one-third of all abortions happen in this phase, usually involving rape victims who are too young to recognize early symptoms of a pregnancy.

On May 17, the Supreme Court declared that the rule was unconstitutional. On the same day, however, a bill with the same content – specifically, banning abortion after 22 weeks – was introduced in Congress. The bill was backed by the evangelical branch of the Congress, as well as by supporters of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who, in 2023, was declared ineligible until 2030 because of his crimes against democracy that included an invasion of Brazil’s capital on January 8, 2023.

The most serious threat the bill made was linked to prison time: it established up to 20 years in prison if the pregnant person had an abortion after 22 weeks, a penalty that could be shared with the healthcare professionals who performed the abortion. In Brazil, the maximum penalty for rape is only ten years in prison, which means that rape victims who received abortions could stay in jail twice as long as a rapist.

In an authoritarian move, on June 13, Arthur Lira, Speaker of the House, labeled the bill as “urgent,” meaning that the bill would go directly to a vote without further debate at in-House commissions. He did this because he had promised the evangelical branch that he would approve the bill before the July recess.

But Lira didn’t count on facing a strong reaction online and on the streets.

The call to action was made by Erika Hilton, the first black and transgender congresswoman in the history of the country. She knew who to mobilize: the fandoms. Soon, pages dedicated to news about pop divas and K-Pop groups were posting a different kind of content: a call to action asking their followers to send emails to congresspeople demanding that they repeal the bill.

Between June 11 and 13, subjects such as “PL dos Estupradores” (Bill of Rapists) and the hashtag #CriançaNãoÉMãe (A Child is not a Mother) became trending topics on X. The petition that circulated associated with the hashtags had more than 400,000 signatures in a matter of a couple of days. A poll at the official website of the House of Representatives had more than one million votes, 88% of which completely disagreed with the bill.

On June 15, congresswomen Sâmia Bonfim and Viviane Ferreira launched a petition for the Speaker of the House to archive the bill. Two days later, the council for the Brazilian BAR, a group of lawyers, considered the bill against the rights predicted in the Constitution. Many politicians who first supported the bill changed their minds after the public outcry. Arthur Lira removed the “urgent” label from the bill and said that the bill could only come back to be voted on in the second semester, which is happening currently. Right now, a new bill to criminalize all abortions as well as IVF and research with stem cells is undergoing analysis from the main in-House commission. Activists are waiting to fight again.

The bill mobilized millions online and offline. Abortion became a trending topic, one of the most searched terms on websites in the country, and the public debate was a heated and rich one, with the theme being discussed also on TV shows and by all kinds of people. More importantly, feminists and fandoms helped stop an absurd abortion ban.

When we organize and join forces, we secure rights – a lesson that many people in countries all over the world must learn and put into action.