Pro-choice activists prepare placards before a demonstration in Goiânia. Photo: Angela Macario/Shutterstock
A woman suffering from intestinal cancer is seeking an abortion in Brazil so as to proceed with life-saving chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment. The prosecutor’s office in the state of Goiás said on Monday that it had requested judicial permission for the termination on behalf of the unnamed woman and her medical team.
Under Brazil’s strict abortion laws, terminating a pregnancy is a crime punishable with up to three years in prison for the mother, and one to four years behind bars for the person who performs the procedure.
Exceptions are allowed in cases of rape, fetal anencephaly, or when the mother’s life is in danger.
Prosecutor Paulo de Tharso Brondi is arguing this case within the latter category, according to which a so-called “therapeutic abortion” is permitted to save the mother’s life. The woman discovered the cancer and the pregnancy at the same time. Doctors prescribed chemotherapy and radiotherapy to treat the cancer, but these are invasive procedures which would risk fatally harming the fetus.
Should the patient proceed with her pregnancy and not treat the cancer, her health will deteriorate further. An abortion, which would be performed at 12 weeks, is thus presented as the only...
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