Brazilian bishops’ bioethics commission condemns attempt to decriminalize abortion

ACI Digital, Oct 6, 2023 / 18:00 pm

The Special Bioethics Commission of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) expressed its opposition to the Complaint for Noncompliance with a Fundamental Precept (ADPF) 442, which proposes decriminalizing abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy.

In a statement signed by its president and the auxiliary bishop of Curitiba, Reginei José Modolo, the commission declared that “no circumstance, no purpose, no law in the world can ever make an act licit that is intrinsically illicit in its content, the voluntary and conscious death of human lives through abortion.”

ADPF 442 was filed in March 2017 with the Federal Supreme Court (STF) by the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL). The case went to trial Sept. 22 of this year during a virtual full session of the court with the court’s former president, Justice Rosa Weber, voting for the decriminalization of abortion.

After Weber’s vote, the trial was suspended at the request of Justice Luís Roberto Barroso, president of the STF since Sept. 28. So far there is no new date for the trial, which will take place in person, to resume.

For the Special Bioethics Commission of the CNBB, ADPF 442 calls for “an extreme ethical aspect, the voluntary and conscious elimination of human lives, harming the principle of inviolability of human life, guaranteed by our Brazilian Constitution.”

Article 5 of the country’s Magna Carta states that “all are equal before the law, without distinction of any kind, guaranteeing Brazilians and foreigners residing in the country the inviolability of the right to life, freedom, equality, to security and property.’”

The commission stressed that life “must be protected with the utmost care, from conception onward.”

“From the fertilization of the egg, a life begins, which is not that of the father or the mother, but that of a new human being that develops on its own. It would be impossible to describe human development from another point, as if there were the spontaneous generation of a multicellular being,” the commission pointed out.

Therefore, “no relevant distinction, scientific or ethical, can be made between a fetus of less than 12 weeks and one with more weeks of gestational age or years of life.”

“Only arbitrariness can explain the different gestational limits within which abortion is allowed in different countries or even in different states within the same country,” the commission emphasized, calling for respecting the human person from conception and recognizing his or her rights, especially “the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.”

This story was first published by ACI Digital, CNA’s Portuguese-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by ACI Prensa/CNA.