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BRASÍLIA – This Friday, the Ministry of Health issued an ordinance that requires doctors and health professionals to notify the police when they receive rape victims seeking a public health unit to perform an abortion. Termination of pregnancy is allowed in Brazil in this situation. The measure, published in the Official Gazette (DOU) this Friday, is signed by the interim minister Eduardo Pazuello.
Abuse:The right to abortion is not informed to all girls who have been raped
The norm also determines that, in the consent form that patients sign to interrupt the pregnancy, there is a list of risks and discomforts derived from the procedure. In addition, doctors should inform women that they can see the fetus or embryo through an ultrasound examination before having an abortion.
The measure also informs that “the referred professionals must preserve possible material evidence of the crime of rape to be immediately delivered to the police authority, such as fragments of embryos or fetuses, with a view to carrying out genetic confrontations that may lead to the identification of the respective perpetrator. of the crime. “.
Experts heard by the report criticized the move. The gynecologist and obstetrician Helena Paro, coordinator of the Center for Comprehensive Attention to Victims of Sexual Assault of the HCU of the Federal University of Uberlândia, said that the measure removes women from health services and increases the risk of clandestine abortions.
– The ordinance is a setback. The place of healthcare is not that of the police. In the previous ordinance, of 2005, there was a presumption of truthfulness of the word of the woman, adolescent or girl. But when reporting to the police is linked to care, you do not want to punish the aggressor but simply to know if there has been a violation or not – he says.
The lawyer Sandra Lia Bazzo Barwinski, of the Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (Cladem Brasil), informing the risks of abortion is not problematic, as long as the dangers of not performing the procedure are also reported.
– The information cannot have an ideological character: it is necessary to respect the autonomy (of the woman) to decide. Or what is being done is to induce that decision – he says.
The lawyer also recalls that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has already considered that doctors have the right and the duty to maintain confidentiality in their relationship with patients.
The public defender and coordinator of the Center for Women’s Rights of the São Paulo Ombudsman, in turn, says that social organizations, doctors and specialists in Family Law are already moving to evaluate the legality of the ordinance.
– If a norm is over-regulated, that is, it goes beyond what is established in the Penal Code, creating conditions for accessing abortion, it may be the case that the demands are questioned.
The federal act of this Friday was justified by the government as a guarantee granted “to the health professionals involved in the abortion procedure an effective legal certainty to carry out the referred procedure in the cases provided by law.”
By note, the Ministry of Health stated that the old ordinance was “in disagreement with federal law.” The folder alleges that with the promulgation of Law No. 13,718, of 2018, the crime of rape began to be investigated as Unconditional Public Criminal Action, when the complaint is made by the Public Ministry itself. The Ministry of Health also argued that Decree 3,688, of 1941, criminalizes the fact that public officials do not report crimes such as rape to the authorities, hence the new requirement.
The 2005 technical regulation of the Ministry of Health cited by Helena Paro and called “Humanized Abortion Care”, informed the non-legal requirement to report sexual violence suffered by patients determined to access legal abortion service to the police.
“The Penal Code does not require any document for the practice of abortion in these cases and the sexually abused woman does not have the legal obligation to report the fact to the police. She must be instructed to take the appropriate police and judicial measures, but, If she does not do it, she cannot be denied the abortion, “says the rule.
However, law 13,931 of 2019 of 2019 began to determine the mandatory notification of cases of violence against women. Target of criticism from human rights movements, the legislation has now been incorporated into the new ordinance for the public health network.
The ministry’s new determination was published less than two weeks after the case of the 10-year-old girl who had an abortion in Recife. She became pregnant after being raped in Espírito Santo.
In Brazil, abortion is legal in three situations: when it is the result of rape; if there is a risk of life to the mother; or if the fetus is anencephalic. Except in these cases, induced abortion in the country is a crime classified in the Penal Code.
Abortion provided by law: The pregnancy of a 10-year-old girl, raped since she was 6, sparks debate on the subject
Repercussion
Deputies from PSOL, PCdoB, PT and PSB presented in the Chamber on Friday afternoon a draft legislative decree (PDL) to suspend the ordinance issued by the Ministry of Health. According to deputy Sâmia Bonfim (PSOL), judicial measures are also being evaluated to prohibit the new rules.
– This ordinance has many issues that harm human dignity. It practically makes legal abortion unfeasible, because it creates a series of difficulties to discourage the victim. Many of them don’t even know they can perform a legal abortion, so the obligation to notify the police only makes it difficult. The role of the Ministry of Health is to ensure that women do not suffer further violence, Sâmia told GLOBO.
In the evaluation of Deputy Fernanda Melchionna (PSOL-RS), the Acting Minister of Health is “institutionalizing the torture of raped women.” On a social network, Melchionna criticized the ordinance.
In the proposal, Jandira Feghali (PCdoB-RJ) points out that the new norm restricts the rights of women victims of sexual violence.
“In practice, the ordinance makes the care of women and girls who are victims of sexual violence unfeasible in health services, by making such demands,” the deputy wrote. In addition to Feghali, Sâmia Bomfim and Fernanda Melchionna, the PDL was signed by the deputies Perpétua Almeida (PCdoB-AC), Alice Portugal (PCdoB-BA), Luiza Erundina (PSOL-SP), Lídice da Mata (PSB-BA), Natália Bonavides (PT-RN), Áurea Carolina (PSOL-MG) and Erika Kokay (PT-DF).
Damares said the rules wouldn’t change
Yesterday, during President Jair Bolsonaro’s weekly live, Minister Damares Alves, from the portfolio of Women, Family and Human Rights, assured that she will not change the rules of legal abortion. The debate on the subject emerged in recent days with the episode of the 10-year-old boy who was raped by her own uncle in Espírito Santo and needed an abortion.
This Friday’s decree revokes extracts from another one, published by the Ministry of Health in 2005. In the old ordinance, there were already four steps for victims of violence to have a legal abortion.
Under the previous rules, the woman had to describe the violence, with date, time, place, description of the aggressor and other circumstances, to two health professionals. Subsequently, a technical opinion attests to the compatibility between gestational age and the date of the report of sexual violence.
listens: Why is access to legal abortion a challenge in Brazil?
Then, the multidisciplinary health team must approve the performance of the procedure, proving, among other issues, the absence of “indicators of false reports of sexual crimes.”
Finally, the women (or legal representatives, in the case of minors) sign terms of responsibility and consent, stating that they know the crimes committed if they have lied about the rape and the possible risks and discomforts derived from the procedure.
The new ordinance now requires to include, in this consent form, an extensive list of abortion risks at each gestational age, such as lesions in the uterus, heavy bleeding, sepsis and even the death of the woman. The document notes that the data are based on the World Health Organization (WHO) protocol.
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