Brasilia, Brazil, May 22, 2008 / 05:51 am
Attendees at Brazil’s first national “Youth Conference” in the capital city of Brasilia has issued a declaration containing rulings favoring the legalization of abortion and the creation of an educational system free of “homophobia.”
Preliminary materials given to the 2,280 attendees at the April meeting were published by the government and bore the name of President Luiz Lula, LifeSiteNews reports.
One publication claimed that 70 thousand women die every year because of complications from badly-performed abortions. The publication also said that women never die of legal abortions.
Official U.S. statistics report about 0.8 deaths per 100,000 abortions, though pro-life organizations argue that such deaths are under-reported.
Government materials at the conference advocated that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transvestites, transsexuals, and transgender people be guaranteed the right to “freely express their sexual orientation.” One document said a deviant sexual orientation “isn't an illness, isn't illegal, isn't wrong, and isn't an option.” Instead, it asserted, such orientations are “like heterosexuality, that is to say, another way of living and expressing one's love.”
One resolution passed at the conference asked the Brazilian government to increase access to secular education that does not privilege heterosexuality, while another urged the government to "implement public policies to promote the sexual and reproductive rights of young women...guaranteeing access to contraceptive methods, and the legalization of abortion."
A poll taken by UNESCO in late 2006 suggests attendees at the youth conference were not representative of their peers or their countrymen. In the UNESCO poll, 47 percent of Brazilian youth aged 16-19 said they would not like to have a homosexual as a neighbor. Forty-nine percent of male youths said that they believed a man who has sexual relations with another man is either ill or shameless.
A recent nationwide poll of Brazilians found that 68 percent oppose further decriminalization of abortion in Brazil. Abortion is illegal in Brazil, but it is not currently punished in cases of rape.