Abortion in Brazil

Abortion in Brazil is currently illegal except under the following two circumstances: if the pregnancy puts the life of the woman in serious risk, or if the pregnancy is the result of a rape.

Otherwise, in Brazil the punishment for a woman to perform an abortion on herself or consenting to an abortion is one to three years imprisonment. If the abortion causes any harm to the woman the punishment increases by one third. If the abortion causes the death of the woman, then the punishment is doubled for the consenting party.

Legislation about abortion can be found on the ''Brazilian Penal Code, Title I (Crimes Against the Person), ch. I, Article 124 (Crimes Against Life).'' Pro-choice activists have been trying to change the law to include some critical deformations like anencephaly (absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp), but have not been successful. The Supreme Federal Tribunal considered a claim to legalize the abortion of anencephalic fetuses in October 2004, but rejected it after public after pressure from the press and the Catholic Bishops Conference of Brazil.

A March 2007 Datafolha/Folha de S. Paulo poll found that 65% of Brazilians believe that their country's current law "should not be modified", 16% that it should be expanded "to allow abortion in other cases", 10% that abortion should be "decriminalized", and 5% were "not sure".

Women imprisoned for abortion
2007 Elisabete Cordeiro dos Santos, a poor woman of Contagem, Minas Gerais, tried to get an illegal abortion when she was four months pregnant. She couldn't get one, and when she was eight months pregnant she took abortive pills. Thinking that the baby was dead because of the pills, she threw it away on a river. The baby was found by a nine years old girl and taken to a public hospital. The baby died a few days later and the mother was sentenced to 12 to 30 years of prison. Her neighbour was also sentenced for participating in the abortion.