The Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade, decided to suspend a technical note on cases of legal abortion published by the ministry this Wednesday (28/2).
The note said that, among the possibilities of legal abortion, such as rape or risk to the mother’s life, the “time limit” determined by the Penal Code for carrying out the procedure would not apply.
The document impugned another statement from the ministry, published during the government of Jair Bolsonaro, which said there was “no point” in carrying out an abortion in “pregnancies that exceed 21 weeks”.
According to the Ministry of Health, Nísia decided to suspend the technical note because the document “did not go through all the necessary spheres”, nor through the ministry’s legal consultancy.
“The Minister of Health, Nísia Trindade Lima, during the agenda this Thursday (29), in Boa Vista (RR), on priority actions by the Federal Government for the health of the Yanomami people, took note of the publication of Technical Note nº 2 /2024 regarding recommendations on the performance of abortion in the cases provided for by law. The document did not go through all the necessary spheres of the Ministry of Health nor the legal consultancy of the Ministry, therefore, it is suspended”, says a note from the department obtained by the column.
Opposition reaction
Before being suspended by Nísia, the technical note provoked a strong reaction from opposition parliamentarians, who promised to try to overturn the document in the National Congress.
The opposition claimed that, through the note, the Lula government was authorizing abortion at any stage of pregnancy, even when the fetus was already viable to survive outside the mother’s womb.
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