Political discourse on abortion in Brazil’s Parliament: the invisibility of women's rights

Authors

  • Marília De Nardin Budó Federal University of Santa Maria
  • Cristina Carla Rodrigues College Meridional
  • Eduarda Toscani Gindri University of Brasília

Keywords:

Abortion, decriminalization, political discourse, feminist theories, Aborto, despenalización, discurso político, teorías feministas

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the content analysis of 25 bills that went through the Brazilian National Congress between 2015 and 2018 on the theme of criminalization and decriminalization of abortion. The objective is to describe and discuss the arguments used by the parliamentarians to support or reprove those bills. The analysis reveals that women’s reproductive rights are not protagonist of the discourse presented in the bills, which focus on the natural status of the fetus and on increasing penalties to the women who perform self-induced abortion. Even if the religious discourse is not so explicit, we can find many traces of it, though disguised behind a definition of the beginning of human life, to demarcate in time the recognition of the fetus as a subject of rights.

El artículo presenta los resultados del análisis de contenido de 25 leyes sobre la penalización y la despenalización del aborto que pasaron por el Congreso Nacional de Brasil entre 2015 y 2018. El objetivo es describir y debatir los argumentos utilizados por los miembros del Parlamento para apoyar o reprobar dichas leyes. El análisis revela que los derechos reproductivos de las mujeres no protagonizan el discurso presentado en las leyes, que se centran en el estatus natural del feto y en crecientes penalizaciones a las mujeres que realizan abortos autoinducidos. Incluso si el discurso religioso no es tan explícito, encontramos muchos rastros de él, si bien enmascarado tras una definición del comienzo de la vida, para demarcar en el tiempo el reconocimiento del feto como sujeto de derechos.

Available from: https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1162

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Author Biographies

Marília De Nardin Budó, Federal University of Santa Maria

Doctor in Criminology by the Federal University of Paraná-PR-Brazil. Professor in the Law Department and Master in Law at the Federal University of Santa Maria-RS-Brazil.

Cristina Carla Rodrigues, College Meridional

Master Candidate in Law at the College Meridional-RS-Brazil. Lawyer.

Eduarda Toscani Gindri, University of Brasília

Professor at the Public Law Institute - Brasília-DF-Brazil. Master in Law at the University of Brasília. Ph.D Candidate at the University of Brasília.

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Published

02-01-2019

How to Cite

De Nardin Budó, M., Rodrigues, C. C. and Gindri, E. T. (2019) “Political discourse on abortion in Brazil’s Parliament: the invisibility of women’s rights”, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 10(1S), p. 67S–99S. Available at: https://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/1106 (Accessed: 29 March 2024).

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