Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff signed a law
guaranteeing treatment – including emergency contraception – for rape
victims in public hospitals, in spite of strong opposition from
religious conservatives who believe it will lead to the decriminalization of abortion.
“In future when a victim of abuse goes to a hospital, the staff must
follow the protocol,” said Health Minister Alexandre Padilha, announcing
the president’s ratification of the law Thursday, which will enter into
force in 90 days.
The new Law 3/2013 only introduces regulations for authorized
procedures for multi-disciplinary care in the public health system for
female victims of sexual violence, without actually modifying the
country’s law on abortion.
In Brazil, abortion is only legal in exceptional cases: when the
mother’s life is at risk; when the fetus has been confirmed by three
doctors to be encephalitic (lacking a large part of its brain and
skull); or when the pregnancy is the result of rape.
“The novelty is that the law establishes compulsory care in the
health services for all cases of sexual violence,” said Beatriz Galli of
the Brazilian chapter of Ipas, an international NGO that works for
women’s health and reproductive rights, including safe abortions.
“At present, we know that some referral services for the care of
victims of sexual violence are not working properly, especially when it
comes to guaranteeing access to abortions in cases of sexual violence
provided for by law,” she told IPS.
Galli said moral or religious objections by health professionals to practicing abortions were common.
She said there was even resistance in state public prosecutors’
offices, which sometimes request the seizure of records to make sure
that the abortions carried out were within the limits of the law.
But the new federal law “will guarantee that health professionals can
do their job with the requisite legal backing, putting an end to
attempts to backslide on the reproductive rights of women, teenagers and
girls who are victims of sexual violence,” Galli said.
Sociologist Angela Freitas of the Provincial Council on Women’s
Rights, meanwhile, responded to conservative critics by saying that the
law’s goal was not to legalize abortion but to guarantee the rights of
women who suffered sexual violence, many of whom were teenagers.
“What bothers critics is that Brazil has begun to create public
health services to provide care in cases of legal abortion, which is a
victory for women’s movements,” Freitas, who also represents the
Articulaçao de Mulheres Brasileiras (AMB – Brazilian Women’s Network) in
the organization's Rio de Janeiro regional office, told IPS.
“Violence against women, especially sexual abuse, is on the rise, and
this bill is important for guaranteeing victims access to healthcare
and medical attention. People who are pro-life ought to support it,”
said Galli, who added that one million illegal abortions a year are
carried out in Brazil, often in conditions that put the mothers’ lives
at risk.
Religious Resistance
Thursday was the constitutional deadline for ratifying law 3/2013,
which was based on a bill presented in 1999 by Iara Bernardi, who at the
time was a congresswoman for Sao Paulo from Rousseff’s left-wing
Workers’ Party (PT).
But doubts had arisen as to whether it would be signed into law, due
to rising pressure surrounding Pope Francis’ 22-28 visit to Brazil, even
though the bill had been unanimously approved in both chambers of
Congress.
Three days before the pope’s arrival, representatives of the
Brazilian Catholic bishops’ conference and other religious bodies
visited Rousseff at the government palace to ask her to partially veto
the law.
They were lobbying for the removal of an article referring to
“pregnancy prevention” and another requiring “victims to be informed of
their legal rights and all the health services available to them” – that
is, the right to abort, or to take emergency contraception pills, in
cases of rape.
Emergency contraception, also called the “morning-after pill”, delays
ovulation or prevents implantation of a fertilized egg up to 72 hours
after sex, but does not terminate an already established pregnancy.
But Catholic Church leaders fear these provisions will allow
abortions to occur even when sexual abuse has not been proven – in other
words, that women may “invent” reports of rape to obtain legal
abortions.
“It is despicable to think a priori that women are dishonest liars,”
Freitas complained. “And it also shows a lack of respect for the
knowledge of the health professionals who talk to and examine patients.”
Freitas pointed out that legal abortions are not easy to obtain in
Brazil. “A multi-disciplinary team made up of doctors, nurses, social
workers and psychologists decides how to proceed in each case.”
So, “if a woman was inventing her story, she would be found out. But
first she must be listened to and not condemned in advance,” she said.
Freitas highlighted that the new law compels the health services to
follow regulations in force since 1999, “confronting the legal obstacles
that anti-abortion sectors put in the way of rape victims when they
decide to terminate a pregnancy and making it possible to penalize
health professionals who fail to comply.”
She pointed out that, although emergency contraception and abortions
are legal in certain cases, they are frequently not provided.
“There is a general lack of information and of referral services for
this kind of care. Brazil is huge and hospitals with this kind of
services only exist in the state capitals and other large cities,”
Freitas said.
“There are doctors and hospital directors who refuse to talk about
the issue and do not provide the service because of conscientious
objections,” she said.
It's not your imagination. The repugican cabal really does seem to have taken leave of its senses.
Shown
on this map (which is interactive at the link) are companies that make
up the Goldman Sachs group, which comprises thousands of business
entities based all over the world. You recognize the shape of the United
States and the UK, but you may have to check the drop-down menu to
identify the others. The area highlighted in yellow here is the Cayman
Islands, where the corporation has 739 subsidiaries. That big red blob
in Europe? That's Luxembourg. You can mouse around to see each company
and the other companies that it owns or is owned by. It can get
confusing fast. There are also visualizations for Bank of America,
Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Wells Fargo, at
