The use of voluntary relinquishment as a barrier to legal abortion access in recent legislative bills in Brazil

Abstract

This paper discusses the use of voluntary relinquishment, a legal mechanism through which pregnant women can choose to place their babies for adoption, as a strategy to curtail legal abortion. We begin with two widely publicized cases involving pregnant girls under the age of fourteen – situations in which abortion is not criminalized due to the presumption of statutory rape. We conduct a documentary analysis from an ethnographic perspective of recent legislative bills that regulate or promote voluntary relinquishment. The argument that there are “30,000 couples” waiting to adopt a baby is often used to delay or prevent legal abortion access. Although it is the right of every pregnant woman, the use of this apparatus as a “solution” to abortion has been an important instrument in attacks on sexual and reproductive rights in Brazil.