Celebrating Important Victories from the Women’s Movement in Brazil

By Beatriz Galli

2010 was a benchmark year for the debate around abortion legalization in Brazil. For the first time, we saw debates during a Presidential election being mostly guided by religious beliefs around sexual and reproductive rights, and in which abortion criminalization was seen as crucial for sustaining conservative agendas through political bargains.

The year was marked by weekly attempts by anti-choice deputies in Congress to approve anti-choice bills that would constitute major backlashes to rights already guaranteed by policies and legislation in the country. Some of these bills included measures to control women’s sexual and reproductive behaviors such as mandatory registry of pregnancies, burial of miscarriages, anti-choice messages in packaging of pregnancy tests, and preventing foreign organizations/firms from doing anything at all related to family planning.

Some key organizations and reproductive rights leaders fought hard for these bills to fail passage. For example, Rogeria Peixinho of the Brazilian Women’s Network, a pro-choice activist and feminist leader, closely monitored anti-choice Congressional deputies’ statements, bills and strategies against women’s reproductive and sexual rights. In April 2010, at a meeting of the Labor Party’s Ethics Committee, she presented arguments in defense of women’s sexual and reproductive rights that were threatened in particular by bills and efforts undertaken by two Party deputies who were using their mandates to undermine women’s rights. Her strong efforts, in coordination with other women’s groups and networks, led to a request for them to leave the Labor Party. more on >>