While Argentina moves to legalize abortion, Brazil avoids the issue

Janaina Aparecida Quirino is a poor 36-year-old woman. Addicted to drugs, Ms. Quirino has been in jail since November for drug trafficking while she was pregnant with her eighth child. A court ordered her to be sterilized right after birth after a request by state prosecutors from São Paulo. Ms. Quirino, however, wasn’t heard once in this case, and the sterilization was carried out before there was a confirmed verdict by higher courts.

In Brazil, not even confessed murderers go to jail before the sentence is confirmed by a court of appeals. Apparently, the same courtesy is not extended to women’s uteruses. Prosecutors called this sterilization “a contraceptive method.” In an op-ed published by Folha de S.Paulo, law professor Oscar Vilhena Vieira said the state “deprived [Ms. Quirino] of her right to dignity and committed an illegal act.”

The case is emblematic of how Brazil deals (or doesn’t deal) with discussions about women’s reproductive rights. While Argentina’s National Congress has reached a historic decision decriminalizing abortions, in Brazil the matter only seems to surface every four years. We pretend to treat it as a serious issue, but as soon as ballots are cast, it hibernates again.

While thousands of women die owing...