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Surge of Zika Virus Has Brazilians Re-examining Strict Abortion Laws
By SIMON ROMERO
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/simon_romero/index.html>FEB.
3, 2016
Photo
Dr. Angela Rocha with the results of a scan of a baby with microcephaly at
the Oswaldo Cruz hospital in Recife, northeastern Brazil, last week. Credit
Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
Continue reading the main story
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/world/americas/zika-virus-brazil-abortion-laws.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0#story-continues-10>Recent
Comments
hen3ryFebruary 4, 2016
Abortion is a personal decision. I may be pro choice but I am not pro force
someone to follow my beliefs when it comes to abortion or...
Eugene GorrinFebruary 4, 2016
A woman’s options in South America are limited once she becomes pregnant:
Abortion is either severely restricted or completely off the...
KatonahFebruary 4, 2016
I think the best possible emergency public health approach to adopt on a
wide scale as soon as possible is the following: Immediate...
- See All Comments
RECIFE, Brazil — The surging medical reports of babies being born with
unusually small heads during the Zika
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/health/zika-virus-world-health-organization.html>
epidemic
in Brazil
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/americas/tears-and-bewilderment-in-brazilian-city-facing-zika-crisis.html>
are
igniting a fierce debate over the country’s abortion
<http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/surgery/abortion/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
laws,
which make the procedure illegal under most circumstances.
Legal scholars in Brasília, the capital, are preparing a case to go before
Brazil
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/brazil/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>’s
highest court, saying pregnant women should be permitted to have abortions
when their fetuses are found to have abnormally small heads, a condition
known as microcephaly
<http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/symptoms/microcephaly/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
that
Brazilian researchers say is linked to the virus.
A judge in central Brazil
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/brazil/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>
has
taken the rare step of publicly proclaiming that he will allow women to
have legal abortions in cases of microcephaly, preparing the way for a
fight over the issue in parts of the country’s labyrinthine legal system.
And here in Recife, the Brazilian city hit hardest
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/americas/tears-and-bewilderment-in-brazilian-city-facing-zika-crisis.html>
by
the increase in microcephaly and the brain damage that often comes with it,
abortion rights activists are seizing on the crisis to counter conservative
lawmakers who have long wanted to make Brazil’s abortion laws — already
among the most stringent in Latin America — more restrictive.
International By AARON BYRD and SERGIO PEÇANHA Play VideoUnderstanding Zika
Continue reading the main story
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/world/americas/zika-virus-brazil-abortion-laws.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0#story-continues-4>
VideoUnderstanding Zika
How dangerous is the virus and who is most at risk?
By AARON BYRD and SERGIO PEÇANHA on Publish Date February 3, 2016. Photo by
Luis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. Watch in Times Video »
<http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/americas/100000004185544/understanding-zika-virus.html?action=click&contentCollection=world&module=embedded®ion=caption&pgtype=article>
The scientific link between Zika and infant brain damage has not yet been
proved. But the rising reports of microcephaly in parts of Brazil stricken
by Zika have caused enough alarm that the World Health Organization
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/health/zika-virus-world-health-organization.html>
declared
an international public health emergency on Monday, noting that its
“experts agreed that a causal relationship between Zika infection during
pregnancy
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/pregnancy/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
and
microcephaly is strongly suspected.”
Some Brazilian doctors are already encountering pregnant women seeking
abortions because of the spike in microcephaly cases. Dr. Artur Timerman,
an infectious-disease specialist in São Paulo, said that two patients had
spoken with him in recent weeks about ending their pregnancies because they
had tested positive for the Zika virus.
“They come to my office and ask, ‘Is there a chance for my baby to have
microcephaly?’ ” he said. “We need to inform them there is. They ask if the
chance is big or small. I respond, ‘I don’t know.’ They ask what I would do
in their position. I tell them it’s a personal decision, only that the
chance is a real one.”
“Later,” he said, “both patients told me they had abortions.”
The debate over whether women should be allowed to have abortions in
microcephaly cases could reverberate across the region. The outbreak in the
Western Hemisphere is believed to have begun in Brazil, the country with
the most Zika infections by far. But it has spread to more than 25
<http://www.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=11603&Itemid=41696&lang=en>
countries
and territories in the Americas, some with abortion laws as restrictive as
Brazil’s, if not more so.
Continue reading the main story
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/world/americas/zika-virus-brazil-abortion-laws.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0#story-continues-6>How
Has the Zika Virus Affected You?
How has the Zika virus affected your pregnancy or the birth of your child?
/ Como sua gravidez ou seu bebê foram afetados pelo vírus Zika? *
You have *150* words left.
Continue
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The push to relax abortion restrictions in Brazil raises difficult issues
on many sides of the argument. The most severe cases of microcephaly can
usually be detected with ultrasound
<http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/test/ultrasound/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
scans
around the end of the second trimester, or roughly 24 weeks
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/health/microcephaly-spotlighted-by-zika-virus-has-long-afflicted-and-mystified.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>.
Supporters of Brazil’s existing abortion laws contend that such late-term
abortions intensify an already wrenching decision.
“With microcephaly, the child is already very much formed, and the parents
are conscious of this,” said Dr. Lenise Garcia, a biology professor at the
University of Brasília and the president of Brazil Without Abortion, a
group against easing the abortion laws. “Getting an abortion creates guilt
that will stay with the woman for the rest of her life.”
Judge Jesseir Coelho de Alcântara, who has publicly stated that abortion
should be allowed in microcephaly cases, acknowledged that the issue is
complex.
“I know this is very difficult because the subject is new, requires
thorough discussion and a great deal of religious influences persists,”
said Judge Coelho de Alcântara, of Goiás State. “But my position is that
abortion for microcephaly should be allowed.”
Proponents of changing the abortion law cite a 2012 ruling by the Supreme
Federal Tribunal of Brazil allowing abortions when the fetus has anencephaly
<http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/anencephaly.html>, a serious birth
defect
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/birth_defects/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
in
which parts of the brain or skull are missing. Almost all babies with
anencephaly
<http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/anencephaly/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier>
die
shortly after birth, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
But microcephaly is far less predictable. Even when it is detected before
birth, doctors often cannot say what the effects will be
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/health/microcephaly-spotlighted-by-zika-virus-has-long-afflicted-and-mystified.html>,
potentially complicating decisions about abortion.
Photo
Dr. Rocha checking a 3-month-old girl with microcephaly in Brazil last
week. Credit Mauricio Lima for The New York Times
“Some children with severe-appearing brain malformations seem to be
relatively unaffected,” said Dr. Hannah M. Tully, a neurologist at Seattle
Children’s Hospital specializing in brain malformations. “Yet others with
relatively minor structural problems may have profound disabilities.”
At least 10 percent of babies with microcephaly have no mental deficits.
These children end up “intellectually and developmentally normal,” said Dr.
Constantine A. Stratakis, a pediatric geneticist and a scientific director
at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in
Bethesda, Md. But any child whose head measures “three or four standard
deviations below the mean, then it’s very unlikely that you will be dealing
with normal intelligence.”
In Brazil, abortions are allowed only in cases of rape or anencephaly or
when the mother’s life is in danger. Until recently, conservative lawmakers
had been seeking to make legal abortions harder to get, reflecting the
influence of Roman Catholic leaders and the increasingly powerful
<http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/26/world/americas/silas-malafaia-tv-evangelist-rises-in-brazils-culture-wars.html>
preachers
at the helm of a growing evangelical Christian movement.
Led by Eduardo Cunha, the conservative speaker of Brazil’s lower house, an
influential bloc of evangelical Christian lawmakers introduced legislation
in 2015 to make it harder for rape victims to get abortions by requiring
them to undergo a police report and forensic medical exam. Another part of
the bill seeks to make it a crime
<http://g1.globo.com/pernambuco/noticia/2015/10/grupo-protesta-contra-projeto-que-torna-crime-ajudar-aborto-no-recife.html>
for
people to assist in an abortion or to encourage a pregnant woman to have
one.
But now some activists here are drawing comparisons between the Zika
epidemic and the debate over abortion in the United States in the 1960s,
when an outbreak of rubella
<http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/rubella/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier>,
a virus that can also cause microcephaly, resulted in thousands of babies
born with birth defects. The concerns over rubella, also called German
measles, paved the way
<http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/04/us/supreme-court-debate-over-abortion-evolved-with-changes-science-society.html>
for
states like California to allow abortion when a fetus is substantially
damaged.
Continue reading the main story
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/world/americas/zika-virus-brazil-abortion-laws.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0#story-continues-11>Short
Answers to Hard Questions About Zika Virus
Why scientists are worried about the growing epidemic and its effects on
pregnant women, and advice on how to avoid the infection.
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/health/what-is-zika-virus.html>
“Pregnant women across Brazil are now in a panic,” said Silvia Camurça, a
director of SOS Corpo, a feminist group in Recife. “The fears over the Zika
virus are giving us a rare opening to challenge the religious
fundamentalists who put the lives of thousands of women at risk in Brazil
each year to maintain laws belonging in the dark ages.”
As in the United States before the Supreme Court’s legalization of abortion
in 1973, a clandestine abortion industry thrives throughout Brazil. Some
illegal providers charge thousands of dollars, risking arrest and the
closing of their clinics.
Estimates on the number of illegal abortions in Brazil vary widely. Drawing
on hospital records showing that 150,000 women seek medical attention each
year for complications from illegal abortions, Brazilian scholars estimate
that as many as 850,000 abortions
<http://oglobo.globo.com/brasil/tabu-nas-campanhas-eleitorais-aborto-feito-por-850-mil-mulheres-cada-ano-13981968>
are
performed illegally on an annual basis.
While Brazil’s abortion laws are less stringent than those in other Latin
American countries — in El Salvador, for instance, abortion is not allowed
under any circumstances — illegal procedures are not treated lightly.
One Brazilian woman was handcuffed
<http://exame.abril.com.br/brasil/noticias/33-mulheres-foram-presas-por-aborto-em-2014>
to
a hospital bed and arrested after she sought medical attention for a
botched abortion. A judge sentenced other women in the city of Campo Grande
who had undergone illegal abortions to do community service in day care
centers <http://noticias.uol.com.br/ultnot/2008/06/18/ult23u2487.jhtm>,
arguing that it would teach them to love children. A 9-year-old girl who
said she had been raped by her stepfather was allowed to have an abortion
in Recife, but only after a heated national battle
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/world/americas/28brazil.html> in which
officials overcame objections
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/world/americas/05briefs-9YEAROLDSABO_BRF.html>
from
religious leaders.
Debora Diniz, an anthropologist and researcher at Anis, an abortion rights
group planning to file a lawsuit seeking to legalize abortion in cases of
microcephaly, likened the Zika crisis to the long struggle to allow
abortion in cases of anencephaly, which lasted about a decade.
“We have an epidemic, an emergency, and the public health sector is not
properly caring for women’s rights,” she said. “We have constitutional
rights at risk, the right to health care and human dignity.”
Religious leaders are vowing to resist any effort to ease Brazil’s abortion
laws because of Zika.
“Nothing justifies an abortion,” the Rev. Luciano Brito, a spokesman for
the Catholic Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife, told reporters. “Just
because a fetus has microcephaly won’t make us favorable” to changing the
law.
Catherine Saint Louis contributed reporting from New York, Anna Jean Kaiser
from Rio de Janeiro, and Paula Moura from São Paulo, Brazil.
A version of this article appears in print on February 4, 2016, on page A1
of the New York edition with the headline: Zika Reignites Battle in Brazil
Over Abortion. Order Reprints
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