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20,000 Brazilians Protest Attempted Expansion of Abortion

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

BRASILIA, August 21, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Tens of thousands of people from fifteen Brazilian states marched through Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, to protest proposed legislation to permit more abortion, last Wednesday.

The event was organized by "Brazil Without Abortion", an organization supported by several national organizations, including the Brazilian National Bishops' Conference, the Brazilian Spiritual Federation, the Council of Evangelical Churches, and the leadership of other religious groups.   Appearing with the marchers were several notable Brazilians, including current and former members of the Brazilian Congress, and religious leaders supporting the pro-life cause.

"Our politicians only hear the voices in the streets," said Jamie Lopes, president of Brazil Without Abortion. "To the extent that we make a crescendo, it echoes against the legalization of abortion, and will be heard by the National Congress, and the bill will not advance.  We do not want to legalize death.  We want life."

Participants marched from the Cathedral of Brasilia to the front of the National Congress.  According to organizers, the march included over twenty thousand people, although police say they only counted six thousand.

Currently legislation to broaden permission for abortion is being considered at the committee level in the Brazilian Congress. Last year, an attempt was made to legalize abortion and only lost in the Brazilian Congress by one vote. Leaders at the march expressed their concern that this time the vote could go the other way, and stressed the need to unify anti-abortion forces in the Social Security Committee of the Chamber of Deputies (Brazil's lower house in the legislature) to prevent two newly-introduced bills from advancing to a full vote.

The two bills under consideration in the Chamber of Deputies, both introduced by Representative Cida Diogo, are 641/2007, which would legalize abortions in cases of fetal abnormalities, and 660/2007, which would eliminate all penalties for "therapeutic abortions", a term used by the abortion lobby in South America to refer to abortions supposedly done for health purposes, but whose definition is ultimately extended to include virtually any situation. 

In the Senate, at least three pro-abortion bills are under consideration, including 183/04, 227/04 and 312/04.  These bills were introduced in 2004 but have recently been revived.

Current Brazilian law only allows abortions when there is a health risk to the mother or when the pregnancy is a result of rape.

The new bills to legalize abortion follow in the wake of national pro-abortion campaigns waged by international organizations based in the US and supported by the Brazilian government's health minister, Jose Gomes Temporao, who has publicly stated his approval of further legalizing abortion and has carried out administrative acts to facilitate the practice. The socialistic administration of Luiz Lula, which has governed the country since 2003, claims to be neutral on the abortion issue, but has not restrained nor silenced Temporao.

According to Dr. Humberto L. Vieira, president of the Brazilian group PROVIDAFAMILIA (Pro-Life and Family), the Lula administration has revealed itself to be pro-abortion, betraying previous assurances he made to pro-life groups. "Despite some declarations by Lula against abortion and having assured the bishops that he would not promote bills to legalize abortion, the Lula administration created a commission to promote the decriminalization of abortion.  At the end of last year the minister Nilceia Freire of the Secretariat of Women's Policy delivered a bill, created by that commission to legalize abortion in the country, to the Chamber of Deputies", Vieira told LifeSiteNews.com in a recent interview.

"What's more, Lula entered into an agreement with the women's movement and with CEDAW to nullify the existing penalties against abortion. Even in the Lula Government, the Minister of Health sent out an order that, under the auspices of regulating abortions in cases of rape, permits an abortion at the request of the woman.  According to this standard, to carry out an abortion it is only necessary for the woman to say to her doctor that her pregnancy was because of a rape"


To contact the Brazilian Embassy:

Embassy of Brazil in Canada
450 Wilbrod Street
Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6M8
Phone: (613) 237-1090 or (613) 755-5160
Fax: (613) 237-6144
E-mail: mailbox@brasembottawa.org  

Embassy of Brazil in the USA
3006 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC
20008-3634
Phone: (202) 238-2700
Fax: (202) 238-2827


Related LifeSiteNews coverage:

Brazil Legalizes Abortion of Anencephalic Babies
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/jul/04071506.html

Brazil Elects Pro-Abortion Anti-Family President
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2002/oct/02102803.html

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