By Alexei Barrionuevo

In Brazil, the abortion debate has once again been brought to the forefront with the news that a 9-year-old girl received an abortion after claiming she had been raped by her stepfather.  Abortion is legal in cases of rape or when the mother’s life is at risk in this country however with increasing numbers of abortions being performed another problem is also being brought to light; sexual abuse of under-age girls.

In Brazil there are 55 centers that are authorized to perform abortions.  The Ministry of Health reported the number of legal abortions performed on girls ranging in ages 10 to 14 more than doubled to 49 up from 22 in 2007; that was out of 3,050 legal abortions performed.  However, the Ministry of Health also reports that nearly one million abortions are performed each year illegally.  At a hospital in Sao Paulo, doctors said that of the 47 abortions performed at the hospital last year 13 were on girls under the age of 18; all were victims of rape.

Despite being legal, access to legal abortion clinics is also a challenge.  Most state-financed clinics are in capitals that can be as far away as an 11-hour boat ride away, and tend to be concentrated in the wealthier southeast region; thus forcing some women and girls to seek illegal abortions.

While Brazil has some of the toughest abortion laws in Latin America many anti-abortion advocates would like to make the laws even tighter by further criminalizing abortion.  One law currently before Congress would require warnings on home pregnancy tests stating “the penalty for abortion is one to three years in prison.”

The Vatican also got into the debate when a Brazilian archbishop excommunicated everyone involved with the 9-year-old girl’s abortion (the doctor’s for performing the abortion and her mother for allowing it – only the girl’s stepfather was not excommunicated) and a high-ranking Vatican official supported the excommunications.  Finally, Archbishop Rino Fisichella the Vatican’s top bioethics official criticized the initial stance saying, “the credibility of our teaching took a blow as it appeared, in the eyes of many, to be insensitive, incomprehensible and lacking mercy.” 

In more than 80 percent of the cases, as in the case of the 9-year-old girl, fathers or stepfathers committed the sexual abuse.  Much of this can be attributed to a part of Brazilian society that still treats women like they are property.  In order to reduce these numbers, this attitude has to change.

To read the entire article visit:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/world/americas/28brazil.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=as abuse of Brazil’s girls increases, abortion debate flares&st=cse