Brazil politicians work to strengthen pro-life laws in wake of Zika virus

Pro-life politicians in Brazil are working to draft legislation to strengthen defences for unborn children allegedly affected by the Zika virus, even as campaigners argue for wider abortion provision as an answer to its impact.
The spread of Zika is being blamed by some for a rise in cases of infant microcephaly, which affects the full development of an infant’s brain and head. Abortion advocates have adopted the impact of Zika as part of their drive to end abortion restrictions in the country. Citing the “Zika emergency”, they are calling for Brazil’s predominantly pro-life parliamentarians to rethink their position. Backing the campaigners is the Institute of Bioethics, which has reportedly drawn up a submission to Brazil’s Supreme Court to allow women to abort fetuses with microcephaly.
The connection between Zika virus and microcephaly has not yet been proven. In Columbia, four thousand pregnant women have been diagnosed with Zika virus – a normally mild condition that clears up in a matter of days – and no connection with microcephaly has been detected there.
Campaigners have been further emboldened by the United Nations’ own call on the Brazilian government to liberalise its abortion regime.
However, in the face of the renewed drive for liberalisation, politicians have drawn up plans to increase the penalties, and to specifically protect foetuses affected by microcephaly.
“With the crisis that has hit our country a feminist movement has tried to take advantage to change our abortion laws,” Anderson Ferreira, the author of the new pro-life legislation, who is a member of Brazil’s lower house of parliament. “This movement needs to be confronted. Everyone needs to realise the gravity of the crime that is abortion and that it is not acceptable.”
The pro-life drive has been fully backed by the Catholic Church locally. Auxiliary Bishop Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, secretary general of the Brazilian Bishops’ Conference, accused abortion advocates of “taking advantage of this moment” and warned that “abortion leads to eugenics, the practice of selecting perfect people”.
Under current laws in Brazil, if a woman procures an abortion or conducts her own abortion, she faces three years in prison. A doctor providing an abortion faces four years in prison. The nation’s Constitution guarantees the right to life, including for the unborn.