Judge who tried to prevent abortion of a 7-month-old baby is targeted by CNJ

The National Council of Justice (CNJ) instituted, last Tuesday (20), an administrative proceeding against Judge Joana Ribeiro Zimmer, who was head of the 1st Civil Court of the Judicial District of Tijucas (SC). She analyzed the case of an 11-year-old girl, almost 7 months pregnant, who ended up having an abortion, after pressure from the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) and abortionist NGOs, even though the baby was already viable outside the womb.

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The case gained national commotion after the repercussion of a video of an audience of the baby’s mother with Judge Zimmer and prosecutor Mirela Dutra Alberton, from the Public Ministry of Santa Catarina (MP-SC). In the images, the magistrate asks if the girl would accept to continue with the pregnancy, which was already almost in the 7th month, so that the baby had a better chance of surviving outside the womb, and the girl agrees with the proposal.

At the time, the judge also ordered the girl to be sent to a foster home, after receiving the conclusions of police investigations showing that the rapist could be at her residence, covered by the family.

The girl’s family decided to go to court after doctors at the University Hospital of Florianópolis denied the possibility of the procedure, justifying that the baby had already passed 22 weeks of gestation and was already viable outside the womb. The doctors’ decision is in line with recommendations from the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Even so, after pressure from abortionist NGOs, the media and the MPF, the abortion ended up being carried out. The case was also investigated by the Legislative Assembly of Santa Catarina, in a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (CPI), which reached the conclusion that there was a network of professionals who would have distorted the story in the media to promote the termination of pregnancy.

The opening of a Disciplinary Administrative Procedure (PAD) against the judge was determined after the national justice inspector Luis Felipe Salomão accepted a complaint.

In the document opening the inquiry, the minister stated that the judge’s decisions would have been responsible for “institutional violence” which would have “re-victimized” the girl. Salomão criticized the removal of the girl from the family.

Following the rapporteur’s vote for the opening of the PAD, the counselors conjectured that the magistrate would have acted out of religious convictions, which is not in the file – the judge cited only the legislation in force to make the decisions. As he no longer works on the Childhood Court, Salomão decided not to remove the judge from her duties during the investigations.

remember the case

In June last year, a text on a news website, without exact information about the case, narrated that an 11-year-old girl, victim of rape and almost seven months pregnant, would have been kept in a shelter away from her family. supposedly to prevent her from having an abortion.

In fact, the separation of the family was due to the fact that the possible rapist was in the same house – a fact omitted by the website. The report generated great repercussions and caused several civil society organizations and politicians to manifest themselves asking for an abortion to be carried out urgently. In this scenario, the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF) advised that the abortion be carried out, despite the fact that the baby is already more than 22 weeks old and viable outside the uterus – that is, it would no longer technically be an abortion, but an infanticide.

The hospital that had denied the procedure, due to the advanced time of pregnancy, ended up giving in to pressure and performed the abortion on June 23 last year.

Later it was discovered that, in addition to omitting that the alleged rapist was at the girl’s house, the report by the pro-abortion vehicle omitted information from police chief Alison da Costa Rocha, of the Civil Police of Santa Catarina (PC-SC), responsible for for the investigation of the case, that the child would have become pregnant after having sex with a 13-year-old teenager. The request for institutional care for the child, determined by Judge Joana Ribeiro Zimmer, had come from the Public Ministry of Santa Catarina (MP-SC) precisely to remove the risk of further abuse. Even so, in an excerpt of the report, there is mention of the shelter as a “prison”.