Currently, Brazil’s government only allows abortions in limited and specific cases. Outside of cases of rape, clear risk to the mother, and when the fetus does not have a functioning brain, abortion is strictly illegal. In these cases, there is no limit to when it is too late for the procedure to be performed. This law from 1940 has not been changed to include other cases. One Brazilian woman who was denied an abortion stated in 2023 that Brazilian women “aren’t in charge of [their] own bodies.” During her pregnancy, the fetus’s organs developed outside the abdominal wall. Even though there was no chance the baby would survive, she was not granted the choice of ending her pregnancy.

After decades of similar stories, the abortion law has finally been opened to possible alteration as the court decides whether abortions will be allowed without restriction during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.  Supreme Court Chief Justice Rosa Weber first presented the issue to the court, stating that the nation’s current stance on abortion does not “consider equal protection of women’s fundamental rights.”  During a virtual court meeting in September 2023, she raised the topic of legalizing abortion until the 12th week of pregnancy across the nation and voted in favor of it. While ten other justices must cast their votes as well, there has not been a date decided to continue the hearing.

In an act of political infidelity, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva claimed during his campaign last April that he believed abortions should be allowed without restriction for any woman. Soon after, Brazil’s Catholic bishops chose to support him during his campaign due to their dislike of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Only a few days later, in order to avoid losing their support, the President retracted his statement and asserted that while he believed women should have access to abortion for the purpose of public health, he was against the act himself. His concern for maintaining the support of the bishops, who advocate a pro-life platform, speaks to the interconnectedness of state and religion in Brazil. His change in stance is worrying as there is speculation that the bishops’ opinions against decriminalized abortion might similarly influence the voting justices’ decisions.

Despite outspoken pro-life sentiments from Lula, there are many Brazilians in support of Weber’s vote to decriminalize abortion. Weber’s argument that taking away women's right to voluntarily end their pregnancy targets their “rights to freedom, self-determination, intimacy, reproductive liberty, and their dignity,” is supported by approximately 42 percent of Brazilians. While not the majority, these advocates are becoming more vocal about the implications of abortion laws. An estimate from 2018 showed that there were approximately one million abortions performed each year in Brazil excluding the legal cases. These abortions had to be performed covertly and subsequently unsafe conditions to avoid legal ramifications, leading to over 200 deaths and 250,000 hospitalizations. The fact that laws do not stop abortions, but only make them more dangerous for women, has become even clearer to the Brazilian people.

This is also clear from a survey done in 2016 with 2,002 Brazilian women. Researchers found that one in every five women had an abortion by the time they were 40 years old. This survey also found that women with lower levels of income and education were more likely to have had an abortion. Most wealthy women in Brazil in need of an abortion often travel to Europe or the United States in fear of the legal risks they would face for the procedure in their own country. More recently, they have traveled to Argentina, which is both the largest Latin American country to allow abortion and one that does not require Brazilians to have passports in order to enter. This survey is a testament to how the abortion laws disproportionately affect lower-class women. Once again, the Brazilian government is not stopping abortions, but only making them increasingly dangerous for lower-class women and forcing higher-class women to flee the country to receive an abortion. As an increasing number of Brazilians see this truth, there is hope for change in the way women’s liberties are dictated.