Health suspends note on legal abortion after pressure – 02/29/2024 – Health

The Ministry of Health suspended this Thursday (29) the effects of a technical note on legal abortion procedures, that is, in cases provided for in the legislation, after pressure from Bolsonaro.

In a note, the ministry stated that the document has not yet been evaluated by “all necessary spheres” and by the ministry’s legal consultancy. “So it’s suspended.”

The technical note stated, among other points, that the legislation does not provide for a gestational time limit for cases in which there is no other way to save the pregnant woman’s life, other than pregnancies resulting from rape and gestation of anencephalic fetuses.

“Thus, if the Brazilian legislator, when allowing abortion, in the hypotheses described in article 128 [do Código Penal] did not impose any time limit for its implementation, it is not up to health services to limit the interpretation of this right, especially when international literature and science itself do not establish a limit”, said the note.

After the Gazeta do Povo page published text about the technical note, Bolsonaro parliamentarians began to pressure the federal government. On social media, Senator Damares Alves (Republicans -DF) said that her team was studying “legal and legislative” measures against the text.

The technical note would also annul a document drawn up in 2022, during the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government, which provided for abortions to be carried out only up to 21 weeks and 6 days of pregnancy.

At the time the Bolsonaro administration’s document was released, Anis (Institute of Bioethics) stated that Brazilian law does not determine “any limitation of gestational age to the performance of legal abortion”.

“Thus, the Ministry of Health cannot limit what the law does not restrict, under penalty of causing a lack of assistance for women and girls”, states the same Anis document.

In a statement, the Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, said that she learned of the existence of the technical note this Thursday (29), during a trip to Boa Vista (RR). The ministry also said that the minister will address the issue of legal abortion in dialogue with the AGU (Attorney General of the Union) in a discussion taking place in the STF (Supreme Federal Court).