Abortion as a right and abortion as a crime: the neoconservative setback

This article analyzes the political confrontation between feminist and fundamentalist arguments about abortion in Brazil in the 2000s. The dispute for conceptions of life is at stake. Feminists argue for the distinction between “lived” life and “abstract life.” The exclusive fundamentalist notion of “abstract life” derived from religious arguments supports the absolute rights of the conceptus since fertilization. Abortion should be a crime (because of sin) under all circumstances (without any legal permissive exceptions). The analysis of the testimonies of fundamentalist federal representatives and clergy members reveals the confrontation with the secular nature of the state. They capture and distort legal and genetic discourses, disguise them as a human rights discourse, and disqualify women as less entitled to rights. Abortion as “a crime and a sin” is linked to the “woman’s (subordinate) place” in the “traditional family.” Neoconservative forces are working toward a religious moral imposition on women and seek the setback not only of abortion rights, but of women's rights