“‘When Will We Be the Ones to Decide?’ The Struggle for Abortion Rights During Brazil’s Democratic Transition”

Abstract This article, which relies on underutilized archival collections as well as oral histories, is one of the first comprehensive examinations of the feminist struggle to decriminalize abortion during Brazil’s transition to democracy during the 1980s. We discuss how the consolidation of the antiabortion Christian right and its proximity to several political parties, including ones on the left, coupled with the politically moderate tone of the transition from dictatorship to democracy, constrained the space in which Brazilian feminists could make radical demands of the state. Moreover, we contend that although the creation of the state-funded feminist organ Conselho Nacional dos Direitos da Mulher in 1985 brought important visibility to feminist issues and inserted the movement’s agenda squarely within the government apparatus, it also fragmented feminists, threatened co-optation by the state, and ultimately compelled abortion rights activists to prioritize the more palatable strategy of expanding access to therapeutic abortions, which were already permitted by law. In addition to divergences in political strategy, feminists struggled to create multiracial and multiclass coalitions during this period, when many Black feminists and working-class women were organizing around other concerns. As a result, feminists were not able to fundamentally alter public opinion about the political importance of abortion, and their efforts to enshrine the termination of pregnancy as a human right in the 1988 Constitution were unsuccessful.