AN ANALYSIS OF THE DECRIMINALIZATION OF ABORTION IN BRAZILIAN CRIMINAL LEGISLATION

Abstract

The norms that criminalize abortion enshrine values and even scientific positions. The value that protects, however, is not life, since under certain “exceptional” circumstances it is possible to abort. The penalization of abortion to truly consecrate and reaffirm patriarchal conceptions and values of femininity at the same time, excludes women from controlling their bodies and their reproductive capacity. Thus, this prohibition constitutes a mechanism of discipline and dominance over women in a context in which being a mother – then in others, an undervalued role – becomes an obligation and not a right; An obligation that must be assumed, almost always, exclusively by the woman, and once she is a mother, she suffers discrimination for being a woman and a mother. The penalization of abortion, in short, prevents women from exercising their rights to the detriment of the recognition of their full legal personality.