NGOs make an urgent appeal to the UN against a bill that equates legal abortion with homicide

More than 22 entities request an international statement for the revocation of a proposal that equates abortion with homicide, with penalties of up to 20 years in prison, including cases of rape.

Protesto contra o Projeto de Lei 1.904/2024, que equipara o aborto após 22 semanas a homicídio, na Avenida Paulista, São Paulo, em 15 de junho de 2024 (Foto: Marina Uezima / BRAZIL PHOTO PRESS / AFP)

Conectas and 22 other human rights organizations sent an urgent appeal to the UN and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) against Bill 1.904/2024, which equates abortion performed after 22 weeks of pregnancy to the crime of homicide. The document, sent on Thursday (13), requests international authorities to engage in dialogue with the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira, to revoke any legislative initiative aimed at criminalising abortion.

Bill 1.904/2024 proposes to amend the Penal Code to punish abortion performed after 22 weeks of pregnancy with between six and twenty years in prison, including in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape. This penalty is the same as for simple homicide and is almost the same as that of the rapist. Currently, the Brazilian Penal Code does not punish abortion in cases of rape and does not impose a time limit for the procedure in such cases. Neither does abortion carry penalties when there is no other means to save the life of the pregnant woman.

Request for urgency

Last week, the Chamber of Deputies approved a request to expedite the processing of this bill, which could have been approved if not for the resistance of civil society. However, the vote on the urgency was postponed and the bill can be voted on at any time, without going through the committees.

The main victims of this measure would be children, who constitute a large proportion of those seeking abortion services at this stage of pregnancy, especially in cases of sexual abuse, where the discovery of the pregnancy is often late. Alarming data show the severity of the situation:

The urgent appeal sent to the UN and the IACHR highlights that the criminalisation of abortion violates women’s sexual and reproductive health rights, constituting a form of gender-based violence that can be considered torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, according to Recommendation 35 of the Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

The undersigned organizations request that Brazilian authorities not impose unnecessary barriers to victims’ access to health services, revoke any legislative initiative aimed at criminalising abortion, publish national guidelines that reinforce the absence of gestational limits for legal abortion, and cease the criminal investigation and persecution of health professionals who perform legal abortions. They also call for a public campaign to inform the population about the legality of abortion in certain circumstances and where to find referral services.

Those signing the statement are: 

Catholics for the Right to Decide

Feminist Collective for Sexuality and Health

Ipas

Conectas Human Rights

Medical Network for the Right to Decide – Global Doctors for Choice / Brazil

CLADEM/Brazil (Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defence of Women’s Rights)

Criola

Centre for Reproductive Rights

Portal Catarinas

Curumim Group

CFEMEA – Feminist Centre for Studies and Advisory Services

Feminist Network of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians

Institute for Land, Work and Citizenship

CEPIA – Citizenship, Study, Research, Information and Action

Margarida Alves Collective for Popular Advisory Services

Campaign Neither Prisoner Nor Dead

Cunhã Feminist Collective

Anis – Institute of Bioethics

Vivas Project

Cravinas – Human Rights and Sexual and Reproductive Rights Clinic at the

University of Brasília Law School

National Front Against the Criminalisation of Women and For the Legalisation of Abortion