The Brazilian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, said that abortion should be debated through a plebiscite. The statement was made during an interview with the newspaper O Globo, published on Sunday (14).
“I have always defended that abortion should be debated in a plebiscite, a stance people didn’t understand during electoral campaigns. We are a secular state,” said the minister, who is an evangelical.
Silva also said that “aspects of conscience” should not be guided by religion, but by “philosophical, moral, ethical [and] cultural reasons." Silva defended the cases in which abortion is already provided for by law: pregnancy resulting from rape, cases that pose a risk of death for the mother and anencephalic fetuses. “If the mother chooses to terminate the pregnancy, she should be supported by the state,” she said.
“We need to work so that women can be in a position to make their own choices. I don't think the problem is solved with the legislation we have. It isn't solved. We need not to demonize the debate, neither those in favor nor those against [abortion]. I think that perhaps, in the circumstances we're in, it's the best part of the solution,” she added.
Recently, Marina Silva took a stand against Bill 1.904/2024, which equates legal abortion in cases of rape above 22 weeks of pregnancy with the crime of homicide.
The “Rape Bill”, as it became known in Brazil, was presented by federal deputy Sóstenes Cavalcante (Liberal Party) and signed by 31 other deputies. Most of them are also from the Liberal Party (PL, in Portuguese), the same as former president Jair Bolsonaro.
After huge outcry, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (Progressive Party), backed down and said there are possibilities for changes to the text of the bill. One of the changes would be to make it equivalent to homicide only in cases where abortion is not provided for by law.
