letter from Brazil
The new Brazilian government is moving towards increased support for abortion.
The trend became apparent when the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, represented by the Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, withdrew Brazil from the so-called Geneva Consensus, a bloc of 32 nations that defend life from conception and the family in the conservative and traditional model, and other measures that seek to protect women’s health.
On the day of her inauguration, 2 January, Trindade announced that ‘the ordinances and technical notes that offend science, human rights, sexual and reproductive rights, and that have transformed several positions of the Ministry of Health into a conservative and science-denying agenda’ would be revoked. It is important to note that the expression ‘sexual and reproductive rights’ is used by proponents of abortion practice.
Evangelical leaders in the Parliament have warned the population about the tendency of the current government to carry out proposals that gradually result in the legalisation of abortion in Brazil by indirect means. ‘The government seeks to hasten the processing of a Bill that may result in measures that facilitate abortion in practice,’ says Nikolas Ferreira, evangelical deputy and the most voted-for individual throughout Brazil in the last elections.
The House of Bishops of the Anglican Church in Brazil (GAFCON–GSFA) directed Anglicans not to support candidates who advocated abortion through the election campaign. The Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil (Anglican Communion), of revisionist liberal stance, did not make this recommendation.
