Abortion in Brazil: when Alice in wonderland doesn't know which way to go

In recent decades, many countries have reformed their laws that criminalized abortion. They abandoned their confrontation from a moral or religious perspective, assuming it as a matter of public health and women's human rights. The decision is based, above all, on the evidence that the prohibition of abortion does not reduce its practice, but determines the search for clandestine and unsafe procedures, responsible for 39,000 preventable deaths of women each year. Brazil has maintained the criminalization of abortion unchanged since 1940 in the Penal Code, with only two legal permissions: when there is a risk of death for the pregnant woman, or when the pregnancy results from a sexual crime. In 2012, the Federal Supreme Court ruled that abortion in cases of anencephaly was not criminal. However, these permissives repeatedly suffer conservative and fundamentalist attacks, which seek greater restrictions or prohibition. The recent resolution CFM 2,378/2024, from the Federal Council of Medicine, prohibited doctors from performing abortions through fetal asystole after the 22nd week in pregnancies resulting from sexual violence. Almost at the same time, Bill 1904/2024 was presented in parliament, with a similar proposal, but significantly increasing the penalties for women who had an abortion after the 22nd week, greater than those foreseen for sexual offenders. This editorial analyzes Brazil's position on the international scene, the arguments behind these restrictive initiatives, and the most vulnerable women who would potentially be affected.