We All Want Rights

In Brazil, an impeachment process that opened this month against the president is only part of the current power battles in Congress. 

The president’s opponents are also trying to restrict Brazil’s limited access to abortion, in a move that’s received blow back from women across the country.

Abortion is legal in Brazil only in cases of rape, a brain defect in the fetus, or a life-threatening pregnancy. But even then, it’s not easily accessible. 

In the state of Rio, home to 16 million people, there is just one doctor in the public health system who performs legal abortions. 

Julia Viana, who asked us not to use her real name, works for a public health NGO and deals with these issues up close. 

Before becoming a mother of three, she herself got an illegal abortion in the late 80s; this year, when Viana’s daughter got pregnant, she supported her daughter's decision to end the pregnancy.

Viana says in the past, women seeking abortions had more options, even if they were underground clinics. 

It was relatively easy to find a doctor who did the procedure and wouldn’t report you. Now, she says, it’s a very different story.

When Viana asked her colleagues at work where to get a safe abortion these days, she says they told her to hush up.

“They looked at me funny, saying ‘You're exposing yourself.’”

She found that underground clinics had closed across Rio in the last few years.

Viana says that intensifying politics around abortion in Brazil have put police under more pressure to make arrests for something to which they previously turned a blind eye. 

She adds that doctors who attend rape victims are known to lecture their patients or even give subpar treatment.

 “I hear reports of procedures done without anesthesia and doctors racking up wait time, with the idea of sending women the message, ‘You’re responsible for this.’”

If a bill in Brazil's Congress passes, rape victims will also have to register at a police station and get their bodies inspected in order to get treated at the hospital, be it for an abortion or for regular attendance after rape, which includes medicine to prevent HIV and the morning-after pill to prevent pregnancy. 

Activists say this will discourage women from seeking the healthcare they need, especially in many neighborhoods where police aren't trusted.

Last month, thousands of women in Rio protested against this bill.

Tougher Laws

The Spanish government recently 

backed a proposal for a 

tougher abortion law.

The bill says early termination is no longer a right, and would only be allowed in cases of rape or when the mother's health is at risk.

The current law gives women the right to abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy, rising to 22 weeks in case of fetal deformities.

Pro-choice groups have pledged to stage protests against the change, which will be debated in parliament.

Spain's center-right government recently unveiled the proposal.

"We can't allow the life of the unborn baby to depend exclusively on the decision of the mother," Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon told reporters.

The move is almost certain to be passed into law because the governing Popular Party has a strong majority in Congress, the BBC's Guy Hedgecoe in Madrid reports.

Many supporters of the party are practicing Catholics, and Spain's Catholic Church has frequently spoken out to call for a similar law; but, the opposition Socialist Party warned the measure would send women into dangerous backstreet clinics for abortions.

Changes to the law have long been championed by Spain's Catholic church, an influential force in a country where more than 70% of the population say they are Catholic. Madrid's archbishop, Antonio María Rouco Varela, has called for an urgent reform of the 2010 law, saying it had "led to a rise in the number of abortions to terrifying levels".

It was an issue that helped propel the People's party into power, said Benigno Blanco, president of the Foro Español de la Familia. "Now it is time for the government to complete its electoral promises regarding this law. There is popular demand to do this."

Elena Valenciano, the deputy secretary general of Spain's Socialist party, spoke out against the Catholic church in April, accusing it of trying to diminish women's say over their own bodies.

Spanish protesters against government decision...

"And women, that is to say mothers, don't they have a word in this? Ministers, judges, bishops, scientists are going to decide what we should do with our motherhood. Yes, they know. We obey and shut up. Amen," she vented on her Facebook page.

Women's groups across the country echo her views. "This is a fight for control over women's bodies," said Yolanda Besteiro, president of the Federación de Mujeres Progresistas.

"For so many generations, so many Spanish women have fought for equality," she said. "They have had some tremendous successes, including a past government that counted as many female ministers as male. But now it seems like their fight was worth nothing."