Brazilian bishops’ conference official defends and promotes abortion

Sao Paulo, Brazil, Feb 5, 2008 / 15:37 pm

Bernardete Aparecida Ferreira, coordinator of the Ministry for Marginalized Women, which is connected to the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference, has written and distributed a statement in which she defends and promotes abortion.

According to the online edition of the newspaper O Estado de Sao Paulo, “Although she said it was her personal opinion, (Ferreira) created controversy among the bishops of the Committee on Ministry and Service to Charity, Justice and Peace, of which she is an employee.”

Ferreira, who works with young women who have been involved in prostitution, points out that “women who prostitute themselves need to get an abortion every once in a while, despite the numerous contraceptive methods they could chose” and that “the criminalization of abortion does not diminish its practice.”  She claimed that she is acting as a Christian and a humanist in defending women who undergo abortions “in difficult and clandestine situations.”

Ferreira said the main reason behind writing the document was her experience with a “large number of women who are in prostitution and have obtained an abortion once, twice, three times and even twenty times each.”

“I do not recommend abortion or the use of condoms,” she asserted, “I am in favor of family planning that is as natural as possible, I agree with the Church in everything but I defend the lives of women.”