Brazil’s top court opened a ses­sion Fri­day that will de­cide whether abor­tion up to the 12th week of preg­nan­cy will be de­crim­i­nal­ized na­tion­wide.

The South Amer­i­can na­tion cur­rent­ly al­lows abor­tions on­ly in cas­es of rape, an ev­i­dent risk to the moth­er’s health or if the foe­tus has no func­tion­ing brain.

The Supreme Court’s Chief Jus­tice Rosa We­ber put the is­sue for­ward in an on­line ses­sion Fri­day and cast her vote in favour of the ac­tion. She will re­tire in Oc­to­ber af­ter she turns 75, the age lim­it for mem­bers of the court. Ten more jus­tices are yet to vote, but there is no set date for when the hear­ing will con­tin­ue.

We­ber said in her de­ci­sion that Brazil’s stand­ing on abor­tions does not con­sid­er “equal pro­tec­tion of women’s fun­da­men­tal rights by giv­ing ab­solute preva­lence of the guardian­ship of the po­ten­tial life” — the foe­tus.

“Crim­i­nal­iz­ing the con­duct of vol­un­tar­i­ly in­ter­rupt­ing the preg­nan­cy, with­out re­stric­tions,” We­ber wrote, “hits the core of women’s rights to free­dom, self-de­ter­mi­na­tion, in­ti­ma­cy, re­pro­duc­tive lib­er­ty and their dig­ni­ty.”

In 2018, a health min­istry of­fi­cial said the gov­ern­ment es­ti­mat­ed that were about 1 mil­lion abor­tions an­nu­al­ly out­side the al­lowed con­di­tions, with the un­safe pro­ce­dures caus­ing more than 250,000 hos­pi­tal­iza­tions and 200 deaths.

Pres­i­dent Luiz In­á­cio Lu­la da Sil­va said in April last year dur­ing the cam­paign trail that any­one should be al­lowed to have an abor­tion, but with­in days he back­tracked. He then said he op­pos­es abor­tion al­though he be­lieves women should be al­lowed the choice as a mat­ter of pub­lic health.

A case last year shocked Brazil­ians af­ter a con­ser­v­a­tive judge blocked for weeks a raped 11-year-old girl from end­ing her preg­nan­cy in the south­ern state of San­ta Cata­ri­na. The girl, who was 10 when she was raped, was in her 29th week when the abor­tion was fi­nal­ly car­ried out.

At the time, an­ti-abor­tion ac­tivists ar­gued that it was way too late for the pro­ce­dure. Brazil­ian law doesn’t men­tion a lim­it in the case of rape vic­tims or when a woman’s life is in dan­ger.

Deb­o­ra Di­niz, a Brown Uni­ver­si­ty re­searcher, con­duct­ed a 2016 sur­vey in Brazil that found one in five re­spon­dents had an abor­tion by age 40. The sur­vey of 2,002 Brazil­ian women found high­er rates of abor­tion among those with less ed­u­ca­tion and in­come.

Wealth­i­er Brazil­ian women for many years trav­elled to the Unit­ed States or Eu­rope to get abor­tions with­out fac­ing risks and le­gal ob­sta­cles they find at home. More re­cent­ly, they have trav­elled to Ar­genti­na, the largest Latin Amer­i­can na­tion to al­low the pro­ce­dure since the end of 2020. Brazil­ians don’t need pass­ports to en­ter Ar­genti­na. —SAO PAULO (AP)

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Sto­ry by MAURI­CIO SAVARESE | As­so­ci­at­ed Press