Commission approves sentence of up to 20 years for anyone selling abortion medication

The Communication Committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved this Monday (4) a substitute, presented by federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG), to the bill that establishes a penalty of up to 20 years for the sale of medicines with the purpose of causing abortion. The proposal goes to a vote at the Commission for the Defense of Women’s Rights.

In addition to the penalty, the text also establishes a fine for anyone who advertises these medicines at ten times the minimum prescribed for health infractions. Currently, according to the Health Infractions Law, the smallest fine for minor infractions is R$2,000. Thus, the fine for advertising abortifacients would be R$20,000. The Penal Code provides for a prison sentence of 10 to 15 years for anyone who falsifies, corrupts or alters medicines.

Deputy Nikolas decided to maintain the original version of PL 3,415/19, authored by Deputy Filipe Barros (PL-PR), but chose to incorporate measures provided for in the attached projects that dealt with the same topic (PL 1004/23, PL 1229/23 and PL 349/23).

One of the changes was to replace the term “abortive medicines”, present in the original text, with “medicines for the purpose of causing abortions”. “In this way, uncertainty is avoided regarding the penalization of advertisements for medicines that are not abortifacients, but that can cause accidental abortion”, explained the rapporteur.

Another change was to extend the penalty to commerce or any type of electronic negotiation of products with the purpose of causing abortion, with social networks and e-commerce platforms being obliged to prohibit this type of crime.