The Negative Impact of Police Reporting Requirements on Health Professional Ethics in Brazil

Center for Reproductive Rights
November 14, 2025

The police reporting requirement under Brazil’s Reporting Law places health professionals in a dynamic of dual loyalty to, on the one hand, their ethical duties and obligations to patients and, on the other, their role in the criminal legal system that they have been co-opted into by law to facilitate abortion criminalization against patient care, health, and well-being. Police reporting has wide-ranging impacts on professional duties related to confidentiality, autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, non-discrimination, and respect for human rights, especially when the reporting requirement is incorrectly interpreted to enable the identification of patients and providers and of specific information about the sexual violence preceding abortion care.

Health professionals must act to ensure that they, and those with whom they collaborate in providing care, comply with ethical duties and obligations to patients.

Brazil’s Ministry of Health should promulgate revised regulations and release guidance to clarify applicable law and procedures and explicitly signal that the proper scope of the Reporting Law excludes mandatory notification to law enforcement authorities that identify patients seeking legal abortion on the basis that the pregnancy resulted from rape.

Read the full report: https://reproductiverights.org/resources/the-negative-impact-of-police-reporting-requirements-on-health-professional-ethics-in-brazil/

14.11.2025

Commentary

Research

Brazil's reporting law

health professional ethics

Open letter to Human Rights and Social Affairs commissions of the Brazilian Federal Senate on access to telemedicine abortion

27 October 2025
FIGO

Call from the FIGO Committee on Safe Abortion on legislators to withdraw or oppose regressive bills and policies that limit access to telemedicine abortion:

Telemedicine has been proven to provide safe, timely and equitable access to abortion care, with outcomes comparable to facility-based care. It promotes privacy and confidentiality, reducing fear of stigma or discrimination. It also supports autonomy and informed decision-making, empowering women to manage their reproductive health on their own terms, and facilitates continuity of care through remote follow-up and support systems, reducing unnecessary travel and costs. Alongside this robust scientific evidence, the World Health Organization recommends telemedicine as a viable alternative to in-person consultations for various stages of medication abortion.

Despite this, we are witnessing growing political efforts to restrict or ban telemedicine abortion in several parts of the world.

Continued: https://www.figo.org/news/open-letter-human-rights-and-social-affairs-commissions-brazilian-federal-senate-access

27.10.2025

Commentary

bans on telemedicine abortion

Federation of International Gynecologists and Obstetricians

FIGO

FIGO Committee on Safe Abortion

Human Rights and Social Affairs commissions

telemedicine abortion

‘I was terrified I was going to die.’ Rape victims in Brazil struggle to access legal abortions

A Brazilian woman who says she became pregnant after being raped in March should have been granted access to a legal abortion

By ELÉONORE HUGHES, Associated Press
June 19, 2025

RIO DE JANEIRO -- A 27-year-old Brazilian woman, who said she became pregnant after being raped in March during Carnival in Brasilia, should have been granted access to a legal abortion. But when she sought to terminate the pregnancy at a hospital around a month later, she was told she needed a police report to access the service, despite it not being a legal requirement.

She decided to abort at home with medication she bought on the black market, with only a few friends on site to help. “I fainted several times because of the pain. I was terrified I was going to die,” she said.

Continued: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/terrified-die-rape-victims-brazil-struggle-access-legal-123029719

New Rio de Janeiro law requires public hospitals to display anti-abortion signs

Opponents view the controversial act as part of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict abortion access

Tiago Rogero in Rio de Janeiro
Thu 19 Jun 2025

A new law has just come into force in Rio de Janeiro requiring all public hospitals and clinics run by the municipal government to display anti-abortion signs bearing messages such as: “Did you know that the unborn child is discarded as hospital waste?”

Reproductive rights activists view the act as the latest example of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict access to abortion in a country that already has some of the world’s most restrictive laws.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/19/rio-de-janeiro-anti-abortion-signs

19.06.2025

News

anti-abortion signs

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misinformation

anti-choice propaganda

Debora Diniz

Eduardo Paes

Jair Bolsonaro

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Brazil/USA – Why We Must Keep Talking About Abortion Pills

As part of a delegation to Brazil, I saw how our countries’ respective struggles to maintain and expand reproductive justice are really part of the same fight.

Regina Mahone
June 16, 2025

Brasília, Brazil—We packed ourselves into a meeting room at the back of the Socialism and Freedom Party (known as PSOL) office in the National Congress building in Brasília on May 14. The bird-shaped capital of Brazil was developed in the 1950s as a modern, futuristic city, but inside the legislative building are standard government meeting spaces, with cubicle walls and drab, windowless halls.

We took our seats at the big conference table or on one of the folding chairs located along the sides. Lunch was served—an assortment of breads, including the staple pão de queijo; salads; fresh juice; and Brazilian carrot cake, which was fluffy (nothing like the traditional US version) and delicious.

Continued: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/medication-abortion-misoprostol-brazil/

What Arizonans can learn from Brazil’s near-total abortion ban

By Rep. Analise Ortiz
June 13, 2025

This is the powerful translation of Nem Presa, Nem Morta, the name of an advocacy organization that is leading the resistance against anti-abortion laws in Brazil. In a country with a near-total ban, this is more than a name, it is a rallying cry against restrictions that can lead to jail time and death.

I met them, and other activists, on a legislative delegation to Brazil made possible by the State Innovation Exchange and the Women’s Equality Center. Why should a State Senator from Arizona care about abortion policy in Latin America when our state just passed Prop. 139 to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution? Because by strengthening connections between the U.S. and Brazil, we can exchange strategies and deepen our understanding of how to stand in resistance to protect each other across the globe.

Here are four ways:.

Continued: https://coppercourier.com/opinion/opinion-what-arizonans-can-learn-from-brazils-near-total-abortion-ban/

New NPR podcast explores a global effort to provide safe access to abortion, outside of a clinic

By Kyle Kellams
June 6, 2025
Podcast: 9:12 minutes

The Network is a new documentary podcast from NPR's Embedded and Futuro Media's Latino USA that explores a global effort to provide access to safe abortions outside of a medical clinic. Hosts Victoria Estrada and Marta Martínez explain how women in Brazil first repurposed an over-the-counter medication to safely end pregnancies. The reporters joined Ozarks at Large host Kyle Kellams for a preview of the series that premiered this week.

Continued: https://www.kuaf.com/show/ozarks-at-large/2025-06-06/new-npr-podcast-explores-a-global-effort-to-provide-safe-access-to-abortion-outside-of-a-clinic

06.06.2025

The Network: Saint-o-tec

June 5, 2025
By Marta Martínez, Victoria Estrada
Podcast: 41-Minute Listen

In the mid-1980s, an OBGYN in Brazil noticed that far fewer pregnant women at his hospital were dying from abortion complications.

It wasn't a coincidence.

Brazilian women had made a discovery that allowed them to safely have abortions at home, despite the country's abortion restrictions. That discovery eventually spread across the globe.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2026/01/01/1263508251/the-network-saintotec

05.06.2025

The Alarming Rise of Gender-Based Violence in Brazil

By Manoela Miklos and Samira Bueno
May 27, 2025

SÃO PAULO—Gender-based violence in Brazil, a longstanding problem in Latin America’s most populous country, has reached alarming levels. In the last 12 months, 37.5% of women aged 16 and over experienced some form of violence. This is the highest rate recorded since the local think tank Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública, known as FBSP, started monitoring the issue in 2017.

The data presents a concerning situation for the 21.4 million women involved in these incidents and for our society as a whole: Despite extensive public debate on gender roles and gender-based violence, there has not been a significant reduction in the number of victims, nor have more individuals sought help. It is our responsibility to understand these statistics and advocate for public policies that address this issue.

Continued: https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/the-alarming-rise-of-gender-based-violence-in-brazil/

27.05.2025

Fórum Brasileiro de Segurança Pública

gender-based violence

Jair Bolsonaro

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

A case of conscience: The Christian feminists fighting Brazil’s anti-abortion laws

A growing movement of Christian feminists are making their voice heard as they oppose threats to tighten the country’s abortion laws. Alice McCool reports from inside their fight.

1 May 2025
Alice McCool

Every month, for 15 days, hundreds of women queue outside a public bank in the town square of Viçosa do Ceará, in rural northeast Brazil. As they wait to receive money from the Bolsa Familia programme – government aid for poor Brazilian families – a woman in her sixties speaks to them through a megaphone.

Liliane de Carvalho is there every single day from 6.30am, unless ‘something unexpected happens’. As a longstanding member of a local Catholic church, she’s preaching – but not about sin or guilt. She’s preaching about the right to abortion.

Continued: https://newint.org/women/2025/case-conscience-christian-feminists-fighting-brazils-anti-abortion-laws