Brazilians have different views on when abortion should be legal, but most do not agree with imprisoning women for abortion

Abstract

Unsafe abortions remain a major public health problem in countries with very restrictive abortion laws. In Brazil, parliamentarians - who have the power to change the law - are influenced by "public opinion", often obtained through surveys and opinion polls. This paper presents the findings from two studies. One was carried out in February-December 2010 among 1,660 public servants and the other in February-July 2011 with 874 medical students from three medical schools, both in São Paulo State, Brazil. Both groups of respondents were asked two sets of questions to obtain their opinion about abortion: 1) under which circumstances abortion should be permitted by law, and 2) whether or not women in general and women they knew who had had an abortion should be punished with prison, as Brazilian law mandates. The differences in their answers were enormous: the majority of respondents were against putting women who have had abortions in prison. Almost 60% of civil servants and 25% of medical students knew at least one woman who had had an illegal abortion; 85% of medical students and 83% of civil servants thought this person(s) should not be jailed. Brazilian parliamentarians who are currently reviewing a reform in the Penal Code need to have this information urgently.

Women’s opinions on the legalisation of abortion in Chile 2009–2013

“…It is possible that women's views on abortion evolve over the lifecourse, and that after having lived through more experiences or been exposed to more friends or family members with unplanned pregnancies and financial difficulties associated with having more children, they become more willing to support legalisation of abortion in these instances. This hypothesis is also supported by other studies from Latin America (Garcia et al 2004;Lisker, Carnevale, and Villa 2006;Faúndes et al 2013).…”

“…This positive association between increased education and support for abortion liberalisation is well documented in the literature (Cesar et al 1997;Alves Duarte et al 2002;Becker, Garcia, and Larsen 2002;Palermo et al 2010;Valencia Rodríguez et al 2011;Wilson et al 2011;Morán Faúndes 2013;Faúndes et al 2013;Jelen and Doc Bradley 2014) and may be due to increased exposure to ideas surrounding gender equity in higher education or to increased work opportunities for women, which both force and enable women and families to consider timing and limiting fertility. The relationship with income was not monotonic: women in the two middle income categories were consistently more supportive of abortion legalisation compared to those in the lowest and highest income categories.…”

“…In the existing literature from Latin America, increased levels of education (Cesar et al 1997;Alves Duarte et al 2002;Becker, Garcia, and Larsen 2002;Palermo et al 2010;Valencia Rodríguez et al 2011;Wilson et al 2011;Morán Faúndes 2013;Faúndes et al 2013;Jelen and Doc Bradley 2014), increasing income or socioeconomic status (SES) (Alves Duarte et al 2002;Garcia et al 2004), paid employment (Duarte Osis et al 1994;Palermo et al 2010) and lack of religious affiliation and/or less frequent religious attendance (Gogna et al 2002;Lisker, Carnevale, and Villa 2006;Silva et al 2009;Palermo et al 2010;Wilson et al 2011;Faúndes et al 2013) are associated with increased support for a woman's right to access abortion. Overall, studies from Latin America indicate that increasing age is associated with increased support for abortion (Gogna et al 2002;Garcia et al 2004;Lisker, Carnevale, and Villa 2006;Faúndes et al 2013), though at least one study has found that individuals over the age of 60 are less supportive ) and another found no association (Jelen and Doc Bradley 2014).…”

“…Overall, studies from Latin America indicate that increasing age is associated with increased support for abortion (Gogna et al 2002;Garcia et al 2004;Lisker, Carnevale, and Villa 2006;Faúndes et al 2013), though at least one study has found that individuals over the age of 60 are less supportive ) and another found no association (Jelen and Doc Bradley 2014). Evidence from the region on the relationship between gender and abortion support is mixed (Garcia et al 2004;Palermo et al 2010;Wilson et al 2011;Faúndes et al 2013), as is the relationship with marital status (Duarte Osis et al 1994;Wilson et al 2011;Faúndes et al 2013). Further, while studies from Mexico have shown no relationship with having children (Silva et al 2009;Valencia Rodríguez et al 2011), others from Brazil have shown a positive relationship between support for abortion and number of children the respondent has (Duarte Osis et al 1994;Alves Duarte et al 2002).…”

Gênero e mobilização do direito no Brasil: violência e aborto, dois campos desiguais

“…(rUiBaL, 2014) 8 É o que indicam diferentes pesquisas de opinião. (CATólICAS PElo DIREITo DE DECIDIR,DIDES et al, 2011;FAÚNDES et al, 2013)…”