In the last week, women’s reproductive rights have been called into question in at least three high-profile events in the news and on social media.
The first was the revelation that an 11-year-old girl, pregnant after rape, had been induced to give up legal abortion by a judge in Santa Catarina. Since 1940, abortion has been allowed in Brazil for cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or when the life of the pregnant woman is at risk.
After the wide repercussion of the case, revealed by The Intercept, the child finally had access to an abortion, performed by the University Hospital of Florianópolis. At this point, she was already on her way to the 29th week of pregnancy and had been placed in a shelter, away from her mother.
Just last week, the US Supreme Court suspended the constitutional right to abortion, overturning the so-called Roe v Wade decision of 1973. The ruling did not ban the practice, but it did allow each of the 50 states to adopt local vetoes.
Eleven states have already banned the practice, including in cases of rape, incest and in which pregnancy puts a woman’s health at risk. It is estimated that more states will join this list.
The change is expected to particularly affect poorer women in conservative states, as they are less able to travel to another state where the procedure is authorized.
The third news of great repercussion was the revelation of actress Klara Castanho, 21, that she became pregnant after a rape, kept the pregnancy, but gave the baby up for adoption.
The actress revealed the situation in an open letter on Instagram, motivated, according to her, by the backlash of “people conspiring and creating versions of the repulsive violence and trauma” she suffered.
In the letter, she detailed that, still under the effect of the birth anesthesia, a nurse entered the operating room and threatened her with leaking information about the situation.
The cases are examples not only of legal questioning of women’s rights already established – they showed that sisterhood, one of the pillars of feminism, is also being put to the test, with women using their space of power to attack other women.
THE Sheet wants to know how you, the reader, feel about these events. How can society correct these injustices? How to rescue solidarity and support among women?
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