Senate debates judicial activism to allow abortion up to 12 weeks

The Federal Senate held this Thursday (23) a thematic session to debate the competence of the legislative power and judicial activism in ADPF 442, which attempts to decriminalize abortion up to 12 weeks of gestation. The request for the debate was presented by senator Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE).

For more than 4 hours of debate, several oral arguments were made about the risk of abortion – both for the mother and the baby, the inviolable right to life, the exaggerated numbers of maternal deaths caused by abortion, especially “Supreme activism” about the subject.

The debate took place one day after the senators approved the PEC that limits the monocratic decisions of the Federal Supreme Court (STF). At the time, the “usurpation of the STF’s powers” ​​was pointed out in wanting to legislate on the issue of abortion in Brazil.

ADPF 442, authored by PSOL together with the Anis Institute, was presented to the STF in March 2017, and requests that the articles of the Penal Code that treat abortion as a crime be considered unconstitutional. For the authors of the action, women would have the right to allow the death of their baby in an unwanted pregnancy up to 12 weeks of gestation, regardless of the circumstances. Today, according to the Penal Code, abortion is a crime, not punished when the pregnancy is the result of rape or there is a risk to the mother’s life. In 2012, the STF defined that the abortion of anencephalic fetuses should also not be punished.

“Abortion delays and makes the country’s economy unviable,” said senator Jorge Seif (PL-SC) when referring to the high cost that Brazil would have to perform abortions through the SUS.

Jurist Angela Gandra highlighted that the action presented by PSOL in the STF “is an abortion of the right” and a “usurpation of powers”. “They allege the omission of Congress and do not mention the countless projects being discussed in the legislature, because what we follow is always an attempt to obstruct the issue from the left,” said Gandra.

For the president of the Brazil Without Abortion Movement, Lenise Garcia, “the right to life is a basic right”, and she mentions that “abortion is often a lack of choice for a woman”. “There is a lot of talk about women’s freedom, but most of the time it is not women who decide, but men. And I could mention several clear cases in which the woman was psychologically pressured,” she declared.

Abortion permits

The public defender, Danilo Almeida, presented images of aborted fetuses and a video showing the suffering of a 12-week-old fetus, to refute what pro-abortion institutions say: that the unborn child does not feel pain. “The unborn child is sensitive and can feel pain. That is why the STF cannot approve this ADPF, because it would be endorsing inhumane and cruel torture treatment,” he said.

Almeida also warned about the risk that ADPF 442, if approved by the STF, could end up serving as a parameter for other judges to want to release abortion licenses at any week of pregnancy. He mentioned the risk, after explaining that ADPF 54, which allows the abortion of anencephalic children, is serving as an “excuse” for judges to grant abortion requests to women who are pregnant with a child with some syndrome.

“What we see is judicial decisions expanding STF decisions. So we shouldn’t expect anything else. If ADPF 442 comes out, tomorrow we will have abortion requests for any week, like that of the young woman from Santa Catarina – at 29 weeks. It will not limit gestational age. We will certainly have actions asking for the abortion of children with gestational ages beyond 12 weeks”, explained the defender.

Pro-life parliamentarians

The parliamentarians, who defend life from conception, were emphatic in pointing out that the legislature has focused on projects against abortion, such as the Statute of the Unborn Child, under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies.

The pro-life bench managed to file the urgent request for the Unborn Child Statute at the end of September. When presenting the urgent request, it is necessary for the President of the Chamber Arthur Lira (PP-AL) to place the project on the agenda of the plenary. If the urgency request is approved, the project will be voted on by federal deputies.

Among the parliamentarians were present the senators Eduardo Girão, Damares Alves (Republicanos-DF), Jorge Seif (PL-SC), and the federal deputies Ronaldo Nogueira (PL-MS), Paulo Fernando (Republicanos-DF), Marcel van Hattem ( Novo-RS) and Chris Tonietto (PL-RJ).

“We have discussed the issue of abortion here in Congress for many decades. We never omit ourselves, and in fact, there are several projects being processed, such as the Statute of the Unborn Child and the Statute of Pregnant Women. So, the deliberation of ADPF 442 is very strange to us, because the minister decided to put it to a vote at the last minute, which we consider to be great judicial activism. We need to guarantee the separation of powers”, explained Girão.