Minister Gilmar Mendes, from the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF), requested a ‘highlight’ on Friday night in the trial of the decriminalization of abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy. This means that the analysis was interrupted after the vote of Luís Roberto Barroso, and the case will be taken from the virtual plenary to the physical one. Barroso, who is about to retire from the Supreme Court, supported Minister Rosa Weber and voted for decriminalization. ‘Abortion should be treated as a public health issue, not a criminal one,’ Barroso wrote in his vote. According to him, ‘the real discussion is not about being for or against abortion. It is about determining if a woman who goes through this misfortune should be imprisoned,’ Barroso wrote.
The decision was made just before his departure from the court, scheduled for this Saturday. With this, Barroso recorded his position in favor of decriminalizing voluntary termination of pregnancy in early gestation, reinforcing a stance he had already publicly expressed on several occasions. ‘Women are free and equal beings, endowed with autonomy, with self-determination to make their existential choices,’ said the minister. Minister Rosa Weber, who also expressed support for decriminalization shortly before retiring in 2023, added her vote to Barroso’s. At that time, Rosa stated that ‘motherhood is a choice, not a coercive obligation,’ and classified criminalization as a form of institutional violence against women.
Barroso had removed the case from the virtual plenary in September 2023, requesting a highlight immediately after Rosa Weber’s vote. The measure temporarily suspended the trial, which can now be resumed in the physical plenary with two favorable votes for decriminalization. In recent interviews, the minister reiterated his views on the topic: ‘Nobody is in favor of abortion. The role of the state is to prevent it from happening, providing sex education, distributing contraceptives, supporting women who want to have children,’ he said on the Roda Viva program in September. Still, he argues that women who resort to abortion should not be penalized.
The case was filed by PSOL in 2017 and requests that the STF exclude from the scope of two articles of the Penal Code abortions performed in the first 12 weeks of gestation. The party argues that criminalization violates constitutional principles such as human dignity, equality, freedom, health, and the sexual and reproductive rights of women. With Barroso’s vote, the score at the STF becomes two to zero in favor of decriminalization, although the trial does not yet have a completion date.
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