RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – With her 21st birthday fast approaching, Sara left the home she shares with her mother for her first trip on a plane. She did not tell her family the real reason she took out a loan of 5,000 Brazilian reais ($ 1,000).
Two days later, hundreds of miles away, a 25-year-old woman packed a backpack from her one-bedroom apartment in Sao Paulo and headed to the airport with her boyfriend.
Both women were on their way to the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires in search of something that was illegal in Brazil: abortion.
“Having a child that I don’t want, and with no conditions to raise, and be obligated, would be torture,” Sara told The Associated Press at Sao Paulo airport as she prepared to sit on a bench at the airport. check-in desk to sleep. the night before her connecting flight.
“What has helped me since I found out I was pregnant is that I have a chance. I have another alternative. That makes me feel safer, ”said the woman, who lives in the interior of the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte and asked to use only her first name because of the stigma associated with abortion in Brazil.
Both women are part of a trend among resourceless Brazilian women who have sought abortion elsewhere in the region to avoid risks and legal obstacles in Latin America’s most populous country. They didn’t even need a passport to enter Argentina, a fellow Mercosur nation.
Their trips came just two weeks before the passing of landmark legislation on Dec. 30 that legalized abortion in Argentina – the largest Latin American nation to do this. It underscores not only how Argentina’s progressive social policy deviates from Brazil’s conservative policy, but also how likely more Brazilian women are to seek abortion in the neighboring country.
“With the changes in legislation in Latin America, women don’t need to go to the US, they don’t need a visa to have an abortion,” said Debora Diniz, a Hispanic researcher at Brown University who extensively abortion. in the region.
“More middle and working-class women associated with feminist groups now have access to something that is essentially the story of long-time wealthy women.”
Sara said she couldn’t risk buying counterfeit abortion pills or undergoing dangerous back door procedure in Brazil. She feared injury, death, or a failed abortion that could lead to complications. Getting caught can even mean a prison sentence.
A protocol from Argentina’s Ministry of Health provided legal leeway for Sara’s abortion on December 14, as long as she signed a statement calling the “health risk” of the pregnancy. The policy was based on the World Health Organization’s definition of health: “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not just the absence of disease or disability.”
Still, some doctors refused abortions, said Dr. Viviana Mazur, who heads the sexual health group of the Argentine Federation of General Medicine. The new law allows abortions up to the 14th week of pregnancy.
“The law will give women more autonomy and dignity,” said Dr. Mazur. “So they don’t have to say ‘please’, ask permission or forgiveness.”
Before last week’s vote, Argentine feminist groups had long pushed for legalized abortion in Pope Francis’s homeland, and they found a common cause with President Alberto Fernández, who was elected in 2019 and introduced the bill.
Activists demonstrated in front of Congress for weeks. Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who chaired the debate in a legislature in which more than 40% of lawmakers are women, announced the passing of the bill. A crowd of several thousand outside burst into cheers and howling embraces.
There is not a single echo in the Brazilian Congress, where about 15% of lawmakers are women.
Brazilian law has remained virtually unchanged since 1940, allowing abortions only in cases of rape and danger to the woman’s life. A 2012 Supreme Court ruling also allowed abortions if the fetus has anencephaly. Since President Jair Bolsonaro took office in January 2019, lawmakers have filed at least 30 bills according to watchdog Women in Congress.
Backed by conservatives and evangelicals, Bolsonaro has said that if Congress legalized abortion, he would veto it. After Argentina’s bill passed, Bolsonaro said on Twitter that it would cause children to be harvested in their mother’s womb with state permission.
He named evangelical pastor Damares Alves, who has said she opposes abortion even in cases of rape, as his minister of women, families and human rights. After a 10-year-old was raped by her uncle and religious protesters besieged the hospital where her abortion was committed in August, Alves said the fetus should have been delivered by Caesarean section.
“We are working to provide a growing level of attention and protection to our pregnant women in vulnerable situations,” Alves said in a written response to AP questions. “No one is going to want to leave the Brazil we are building, let alone kill their children.”
Diniz, the Brown University researcher, conducted a survey in Brazil in 2016 that found that one in five respondents had had an abortion by the age of 40. The survey of 2,002 Brazilian women found higher abortion rates among those with less education and income.
In 2018, a health ministry official said the government estimated about 1 million induced abortions annually, with unsafe procedures causing more than 250,000 hospitalizations and 200 deaths.
“Abortion is a very common experience in a woman’s life. But at the same time it is a sensitive political issue, and made sensitive by those in power, ”said Diniz.
The Sao Paulo woman who traveled to Argentina for an abortion last month grew up in a slum or favela in Rio de Janeiro, where she regularly saw unplanned pregnancies derail women’s lives, burdening them with responsibilities and making it even more difficult to get a job. Have a career or social mobility. .
“It’s hard to get out of that reality,” she said.
She was able to leave the favela after finding a permanent job and studying for a career in a medical field. In doing so, she became “my parents’ pride,” said the woman, who asked not to use her name because she feared professional consequences and because abortion is illegal in Brazil.
Raised in a devout evangelical home, the woman said that abortion in Brazil meant breaking both her God and national law. Of the two, she believed God could forgive her, so she looked abroad.
That way, she said, “no one will be able to accuse me of committing a crime.”
Both women sought help from the Brazilian non-profit Miles for Women’s Lives, founded by screenwriter Juliana Reis and Rebeca Mendes, who pioneered in 2017 when she publicly announced she would be traveling outside Brazil for an abortion. The group helped the first woman travel abroad in November 2019, with another 59 followed by the end of last year. In total there are 16 women who went to Argentina in November and December.
It raises about 4,000 reais ($ 750) monthly from crowdfunding and pays travel expenses for about one-fifth of women, Reis said. Efforts are focused on providing moral support and helping women navigate unfamiliar countries and connect with clinics abroad.
The group has received approximately 1,500 requests for assistance, both in Brazil and abroad. Some asked about neighboring Uruguay without knowing that the law only applies to residents, Reis said. The only other places in Latin America where abortion is legal are Cuba, Guyana, French Guiana and parts of Mexico.
Now that Argentina has approved legalization, the group expects to provide more Brazilian women with an affordable, safe and legal option at their doorstep. Reis said the group has 13 women going to Argentina in January, and she expects travel there to be more frequent, especially from southern Brazil.
“Our operations have reached an intense level because many people think it is no longer acceptable to keep hiding this in the closet and come up with solutions,” said Reis. “For me this is the beginning of a change.”
After her abortion, Sara in Buenos Aires said she was relieved and even considered sharing the experience with her family.
“I know women who have had to do clandestine abortions,” she said. “In Brazil – and everywhere – there are women who need this support.”
___ Pollastri reported from Sao Paulo. Calatrava reported from Buenos Aires. Video journalist Yesica Brumec contributed from Buenos Aires.