Abstract : In the inaugural issue of the Revista Estudos Feministas (Feminist Studies Magazine) in 1992, I wrote an article desiring to briefly take stock about the abortion discrimination in Brazil. In that article, written almost six years ago, I try to recover the proposals presented about this issue in the 1970s and 1980s by both the feminist movement and the National Congress. In summary, the crucial point of the debate at that time was three-fold: did we need to fight for total abortion discrimination; did we need to fight for regulatory discrimination; or did we need to fight for the enlargement of legal leniency of the Penal Code? For the feminists, those three questions didn't present any incoherence. It was only a question of choosing the most efficient strategy for voluntary pregnancy interruption to be accepted by the Brazilian government as a licit behavior. This is beyond what was already permitted by law in cases of danger to the mother's life or pregnancy resulting from a rape. (excerpt)
Web site : http://www.cfh.ufsc.br/~ref