The simple office has a gurney, covered in paper, and walls with worn paint. Standing, the doctor in the white coat and mask asks questions of a young woman. Do you use birth control? “Yea”. When was the last menstruation? “May 7”.
It could be a gynecological consultation in a public hospital in any Latin American country, including Brazil, were it not for the conclusion. “I’m going to ask you for some urgent tests so that we can carry out the interruption safely”, says the doctor, in Spanish. He then explains the steps for a woman to have a legal abortion.
Today, this conversation would only be possible in three South American countries: Colombia, Uruguay and Argentina. The scene of the documentary “Verde-Esperanza – Legal Abortion in Latin America” ​​was filmed in the latter. The capital, Buenos Aires, is one of the settings for the film, produced by Gênero e Número in partnership with the production company Filmes da Fonte and released in the second half of this year.
It had exhibitions in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Florianópolis last month, and a crowdfunding campaign was created to take it to other capitals.
“The care scene is the highlight of the film, because the dignity with which women are treated is clear, the naturalness with which the doctors receive them to perform the procedure, as if it were any other”, says the director, Maria Lutterbach .
“Verde-Esperanza” chooses to show two more recent cases of decriminalization of abortion without conditions. In South America, the procedure has been legal since 2012 in Uruguay and, in Chile, there has been progress in legislation —until 2017, it was prohibited even in cases of rape and risk to the life of the pregnant woman—, but there are still conditions; the proposed Constitution, defeated in a referendum in September, provided for the right.
In Argentina and Colombia, however, women do not need to give a reason to terminate the pregnancy. In the scene in which the doctor explains to the pregnant woman from Buenos Aires that she can choose between uterine aspiration and the use of misoprostol, a safe abortive drug that can be taken at home, he never asks the reason for the decision.
The paths that led the two countries to decriminalize the practice, however, are different. In Argentina, the popular movement dubbed “Marea Verde” (green tide), a reference to the color of the group’s symbol scarves, pressured Congress for the approval, in December 2020, of a law that authorizes the interruption of up to 14 weeks of pregnancy .
In Colombia, the path was the Supreme Court. In February this year, the court decided to allow the procedure for up to 24 weeks.
It is a path similar to the one that Brazilian activists envisage. “We have already experienced other promises of possible advances. We had the presentation of a bill [pela descriminalização]but the rise of conservatism, especially in Congress, made it unfeasible”, says Laura Molinari, coordinator of the Nem Presa Nem Morta campaign and one of the interviewees in the film.
The assessment is that, today, the most likely scenario of decriminalization would pass through the Federal Supreme Court. The Claim of Non-compliance with a Fundamental Precept (ADPF) 442 is pending in court, under the report of the current president, Rosa Weber. The action was filed by PSOL in 2017 and calls for the decriminalization of abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy.
For Molinari, however, one of the successes of “Verde-Esperanza” is not to present a ready-made formula, a step by step of decriminalization. “The documentary brings a lot of restrictions in Brazil and their impact, but it also has an element of pointing out possible paths, without imposing models.”
The director also looks at the stigma surrounding abortion — even the legal one. Lutterbach says the issue arose mainly in Colombia. “We hear reports that there are hospitals and clinics that do not want to be related to the issue, despite being clear in the law”, she says. In Argentina, she sees a more consolidated scenario, in which there is dissonance, but the procedure is treated in a more natural way.
One of the film’s differences is the focus on advances in decriminalization. Recent documentaries on the subject, such as the American “Roe x Wade: Women’s Rights in the USA” (2018), available on Netflix, usually focus on threats to the right; according to Lutterbach, the idea of ​​doing the opposite was conscious.
“The discussion about abortion was very captured by the ultra-right. The feminist movement and all the people involved in this cause basically had to fight against setbacks”, she says. “So it was strategic to show countries where the law had managed to advance, to serve as inspiration for the fight.”
If the US faces a battle between Democrats and Republicans, who are fighting at the state level after the reversal of the Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court —which overturned the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy—, Latin American countries have been moving towards flexibility.
In addition to Argentina and Colombia, Mexico recently decriminalized the procedure. In September 2021, the country’s Supreme Court understood that it is unconstitutional to punish women who interrupt gestation. “It is important to look at the region with the generosity that we are doing a lot of things and advancing”, says Molinari.
With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
