Brazilian lawmaker grateful for campaign against including abortion in party platform

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Jun 8, 2006 / 22:00 pm

A prominent lawmaker of the Worker’s Party in Brazil, Luiz Bassuma, who is also founder and president of the Parliamentary Front in Defense of Life, thanked pro-life supporters this week for their efforts to prevent abortion from being included in the platform that the party will be adopting during the upcoming presidential elections.

Several days ago, pro-life leaders in Brazil launched an e-mail campaign against a motion approved at the party’s national convention that called for the inclusion of legal abortion in its political platform for the new electoral season.  Pro-life leaders asked voters to send messages of support to Worker’s Party members who are pro-life.  As a result some 20 lawmakers petitioned party leaders to reject the motion.

Bassuma announced a meeting of the Parliamentary Front for this week in order to step up efforts to mobilize the pro-life vote and work towards ensuring the election of a pro-life majority in Congress.  

“Feminists in the Worker’s Party secured approval of the motion at the end of the convention without any kind of prior discussion,” Bassuma said in a message to supporters.  “Therefore, this was a scheme to get the motion passed, because if beforehand there had been any kind of open, democratic debate, this motion would most certainly not have been adopted.”

“The feminists in the Worker’s Party cannot impose their position on abortion on party leaders and activists who do not support the legalization of abortion Brazil,” Bassuma stated.