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Month: December 2020

BAYAN Europe

Alliance of Filipino progressive organizations


11/12/2020

The broadest and most comprehensive alliance of Filipino progressive organizations has come to Europe! Defamation and malign are nothing but an abortive fling to defeat the national democratic mass movements. Those fake surrenderees, and impudent red-tagging against the individuals and organizations in an insistent that the ND movement is waning and irrelevant is as pretentious as the claim that the Philippines is no longer a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society.

The launching of BAYAN-Europe on 12 December 2020 was the Filipino migrants’ answer to the call on intensifying the struggle against the US/China-Duterte administration!

BAYAN Europe is an alliance of Filipino organizations constituting of migrant workers, immigrants, students, youth, women, LGBTQ+, artists and church people.

As the regional information bureau of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), BAYAN Europe aims to advance the unity amongst the Filipino-led organizations in the continent through education, organization and mobilization for the national-democratic aspirations of the Filipino people.

The USA one month after the elections

On election day, we interviewed several leftists from the USA about their feelings about the elections. At the time, a Trump victory was still a distinct possibility. One month on, we interviewed US socialists based in Germany, the UK, and the USA to try to get a sense of the current mood


07/12/2020

Interviews with Tina Lee (TL), Kate O’Neil (KON), and James Ziegler (JZ)

 

Could you please briefly introduce yourself?

TL: I’m Tina Lee, a writer, researcher, and project manager in Berlin. I’m registered to vote in Virginia.

KON: I’m a socialist from the US, active on the American Left for many years, and have lived and worked as a teacher in London, UK since 2012. I’m a contributor to Counterfire on US-American politics.

JZ: My name is James Zeigler. I am a member of marx21 (US), and resident of Pasadena, CA and past resident of Portland, OR.

At the time of the first interview, a Trump victory still seemed possible. Now it seems that Biden has won a clear majority. What is your reaction?

JZ: I was actually not surprised to see Trump on the verge of what looked like another election day victory. I was surprised to see that Biden had been able to flip PA, MN, MI, and GA from 2016 Trump wins over Hillary. I am, however, not surprised it was close— but am very surprised by the increased voter turnout for both candidates. I do not think we can extrapolate much from the increased turn-out other than that this election cycle is far more politically charged, and I think the mail-in option made a difference with turn-out.

Do you think that Trump will go gracefully?

TL: HA.

JZ: He is incapable of grace. Humility is not something he has ever shown.

There were some nasty right-wing demos in Washington and elsewhere. Who organised these demos, and what are they doing now?

JZ: Mostly Proud Boys, or other ‘Patriot’ groups like ‘Patriot Prayer’, and I am sure other Nationalist groups and the White Supremacist fringe that will get involved There are plenty of militia groups (3 percenters) that will also get involved, usually seen in military grade body armour and weaponry.

Isn’t it now time to scrap the Electoral College system?

TL: Yes! And introduce a raft of other voting reforms, and ban gerrymandering, and fight for statehood for DC and Puerto Rico. Let’s fight on many fronts.

JZ: It’s been time for quite awhile. I doubt that it will go away any time soon. It has been the symbolic equaliser for ‘Rural America’ vs the evil ‘City Slickers’ (Liberals). The fight over keeping this system of minority control has been viewed as absolutely necessary to protect classic ‘American Values’ (Conservatism, Heartland, Christian Values, etc).

What can we expect of a Biden/Harris government?

JZ: A less verbally offensive version of Trump politics. They literally have no choice because Biden and Harris are 100% dedicated to bi-partisan politics, because the Democrats lost in both the House and Senate. Unless they want to get nothing done, they must draft right-leaning legislation, which will help further pave the way to Trump 2.0 (either Trump or potentially his son’s running in 2024).

TL: People often haven’t read Biden’s manifesto and don’t realise that he has the most progressive platform of any president in US history — far to the left of either Obama administration on issues such as immigration reform, environment, and criminal justice. Considering what has come before that certainly doesn’t make him a socialist, but it means there are some real possibilities for progress if he doesn’t face massive gridlock and follows through with what he promises. We will have to wait for Senate run-offs in Georgia to assess more properly.

But what I expect initially is a slate of executive orders overturning the Muslim Ban, reinstating DACA (the Dream Act), and restoring environmental standards to where they were pre-Trump. I am looking forward to this while being realistically pessimistic about the massive entrenched challenges facing this administration and their own tendency to side with centrists. I’m not assuming the worst before they even start, though, because whether it’s right or left, it’s best to look at what people actually do, not what they say.

KON: An attempt to move politics back to a pre-Trump, Obama-style centre. This was clearly the party leadership’s goal in side-lining Sanders during the primary, and it was further evidenced by the support they welcomed from Wall Street and Bush-era hawks during the campaign and of Washington insiders for cabinet roles after the election. Internationally, this will mean a recommitment to organisations and agreements that Trump has snubbed, such the WHO, NATO, and the Paris climate accords, and an overturning of the Muslim travel ban. Biden has also signalled his wishes to re-join the Iraq nuclear deal, although recent tensions with Iran over the assassination of their lead nuclear scientist may complicate this.

Domestically, scientific agencies like the Centres for Disease Control and the Environmental Protection Agency will be re-legitimised; commissions will be set up to address social issues like police abuse and separation of immigrant families; and some limited ‘pathway to citizenship’ for undocumented immigrants begun under Obama will be renewed. Most of this can be done through executive order. We are also certain to see some emergency action on COVID, such as one-off economic relief measures, tighter social distancing restrictions and funding for treatment and vaccination. It won’t be hard to improve on Trump’s performance in this area, though. He just seems to close his eyes, plug his ears and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ as the virus spins out of control.

Beyond this, those looking for a departure from status quo capitalist management are sure to be deeply disappointed. The few progressive reforms that Biden has pledged to put on the table in 2021—a 7% tax hike on corporations, the addition of a ‘public option’ to Obama’s healthcare reforms, a $2 trillion fund for clean energy development, and the creation of 5 million jobs through a $700 billion economic boost—will all undoubtedly be blocked or whittled down by Republicans in Congress, regardless of the outcome of the Georgia senate race in January. Even if they were to pass in full, they are far narrower in scope than Sanders’ Green New Deal or Medicare for All plans and rely essentially on private sector investment.

But this moderate brand of politics cannot resolve the deep crisis country is facing. Whatever the intentions, the Biden administration will be operating under conditions very different from those of the Obama administration. Transformative economic, health, and climate change is required, and the less Biden is willing or able to issue from White House, the more politics will need to fought over between right and left in the streets.

In 2020, one of the most discussed political slogans was “Defund the Police”. Could this demand be realised (and how)?

TL: Despite all the hand-ringing over the phrasing, the slogan accomplished a lot: it moved the Overton window on police reform, drew attention to police budgets, and started a conversation about alternatives to the carceral state. A huge majority of Americans support divesting funds to the police to invest in social programs – which is what #defundthepolice stands for. Abolitionists should build on this momentum and continue to stack up victories for community-led solutions and alternatives to sending our taxpayer dollars to increasingly militarised police departments that don’t make communities safer.

JZ: Not under a Biden/Harris presidency. Both are staunch supporters of police; Harris is a cop, and her CA record should illustrate her absolute support of more cops, more jails. I think there will be some states where there will be token shows of de-funding, or of restructuring police budgets in ‘Liberal’ states, but because these changes will be debated over and end up completely watered-down versions of real change. Any changes will prove to be ineffective, and instead of identifying the poor implementation, they will blame ‘socialistic’ type programs that prove the failures of socialism and scrap the entire project and blame us.

Since the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, there are worries the new Supreme Court could ban all abortions. How likely a scenario is this?

TL: It is not likely that SCOTUS bans abortion. Instead, it seems possible that they could overturn Roe v. Wade, a case that said women have the right to an abortion without excessive government regulation. With that case revoked, we can expect to see a flurry of fascist state laws regulating women’s bodies. However, it is still possible to make state-level laws that enshrine a woman’s right to choose, or for state level courts or constitutions to do so. So, the Supreme Court won’t likely ban abortion, but it may open the floodgates for states to do so.

KON: What is at stake here is whether or not the court will overturn the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, which gives constitutional protection to abortion in all fifty states. So overturning it would not ban abortion nationally, but it would grant the right to ban it at the state level. A majority of Americans has consistently opposed a blanket ban on abortions since Roe v. Wade, and you can be sure that in more liberal states the extent of support for the right to choose is very high. So if Roe v. Wade is overturned, what we would be looking at is an unequal patchwork system in which women in some states have access and others do not.

This is still a nightmare scenario, of course. It would set the women’s movement back generations, and it is a distinct possibility. Currently there are over a dozen abortion-related cases just one step away from a Supreme Court, and with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, six out of nine justices are now conservative. It is likely that one of these cases will come up soon, and women’s rights activists must remain on high alert and prepare to ‘go Polish’ when it does.

But I don’t think it’s the case that Roe v. Wade will be overturned ‘automatically’, as Trump claimed in 2016, just because conservatives stack the court. Republican appointees have been the majority on the Court for 49 of the past fifty years, and Roe v. Wade was in fact decided by a Court with the same ratio of conservatives and liberals that it has now, 6-3, during the reign of Richard Nixon. These people opposed abortion, but they were also responding to popular opinion and the women’s rights movement of the early seventies.

This summer, the Court, which already had a 5-4 conservative majority, struck down a challenge to Roe v. Wade coming from Louisiana. Why? 2019 saw waves of protests across the country when first-trimester abortion bans were declared in various states. I think the Court has been hesitant to go for the jugular on abortion all these years because, ultimately, they fear unleashing a national ‘Women’s Lives Matter’ movement and a major political crisis. For this reason, rather than trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Court may choose to continue kicking the issue back to the states, where rights have been quietly chipped away since 1973 and where smaller local movements are easier to trample. Our movement must be just as prepared to confront that strategy.

Biden has made no secret of his imperial ambitions. Can we expect more wars under Biden?

JZ: Lots more, and he will sell it as ‘good for the failing economy’, which will still be failing but not for the ruling class.

TL: I think in the short term a US return to robust collective security organisations probably makes new outbreaks of wars somewhat less likely. But that won’t necessarily impact below the surface conflicts where the US and our horrible weapons continue to play a significant role.

What can we expect from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad?

TL: Unless she drops out of politics because of the relentless harassment, I think AOC is going to continue to be a major progressive force in the party, and the current squad will hopefully continue to grow. I think their success depends heavily on their ability to change the way dark money influences US politics. Warren and Sanders both had good approaches to dealing with that issue, and I hope they push for their strategies in the Biden administration.

JZ: I expect more of the same. Obviously much further left than the majority, but she and the Squad have shown the several contradictions they have politically with the DSA and the ‘Left’. They have limits, but I expect them to be the popular voice of dissent in the Senate and House.

The DSA had a strategy of building inside and outside parliament. What can we expect of them now that the elections are over?

JZ: I am not sure what sort of faith I have in the DSA. There are too many political contradictions within the organisation, and I am not sure they can actually be the vehicle to push politics leftwards in America because of the contradictory strategy. But maybe this sort of Big-Tent organisation can be effective in the struggle for socialism, but I am not sure how.

KON: There is a wide range of views in the DSA about how much weight to give parliamentary versus extra-parliamentary activity, and this reveals itself in debates about how to orient to the Democrats. Many, like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, look to a strategy of reforming the Democratic Party and shifting it leftwards—very similar to that of the Corbyn-supporting Left inside of the British Labour Party. The priority is to get progressives elected to office and to leverage this to lobby for change through legislation.

Much of the DSA membership, led by the Bread and Roses faction and promoted in publications like Jacobin, have espoused an inside-outside strategy that they call ‘the dirty break’. That is, electoral campaigns on the Democratic ticket should continue to be a key area of activity until the political and organisational strength of DSA, and indeed class struggle, has developed to the point where they can form a separate party. In theory, this strategy should lend equal weight to grassroots organising and campaigning, but it has been argued that in practice ‘the dirty break’ has pushed movement and organisation building to the margins of DSA work. For example, while individual DSA members or local DSA branches have been very involved in the Black Lives Matter organising, DSA has not been a key player in the movement nationally. It is for this reason that a minority of DSA members, often around revolutionary left publications such as Tempest, are now pushing for a ‘clean break’ from the Democratic Party and a renewed emphasis on grassroots organising in workplaces and neighbourhoods.

For the foreseeable future, it looks like the Bread and Roses ‘dirty break’ position will hold the most sway over the membership, but that view could be put to the test quite dramatically in the coming year if Biden launches a direct attack on the Left in the Democratic Party, if politics is deadlocked in Washington, if further major class struggles do emerge. There is no guarantee, of course, that DSA will be capable of responding to these changes. One mustn’t forget that its transformative growth spurt took place in the wake of an electoral campaign, the Sanders’ 2016 presidential run, and electoralism has dominated the group’s leadership and activity ever since. A shift from this approach would have to be the subject of major debate inside DSA. I hope we will see this.

Does the left have a future in the Democratic Party? If not, what should it do?

TL: Yes, in fact it is the future of the Democratic Party.

JZ: No, and we should really stop trying. The work should be started to break labour away from the Democratic Party. Union Labour donations to the Democrats has been far eclipsed by Wall Street. The voice of Labour in American Politics has been effectively silenced since probably 1920-1930’s when the American Labour Movement sort of loses its effectiveness. Workers need to organise to either force their union to back and formulate a true American Labour Party, or to form new labour organisations that will work to back or form a Labour Party alternative. However, it must be only the political representative of the working class and not the path to socialism.

KON: If by this you mean, ‘Can the Democratic Party be transformed into a left-wing party?’, the answer is an emphatic no. There is no historical precedent for this. Since its founding as a party representing southern slaveowners in the eighteenth century, through to its conversion in the twentieth century to the party of choice for more liberal-minded capitalists, the Democrats have never been anything but an advocate for elite interests. This is obscured, of course, by the fact that the Party—at least since the Roosevelt era—has relied on votes from working-class and oppressed constituencies, and so must talk left at election time to gain votes. Institutions that routinely rally the vote for Democrats—from trade unions to civil rights groups—in turn echo and legitimise this left talk.

Until the Sanders campaign in 2016, it was the often case that grassroots activists from the ranks of these institutions would run for office themselves, furthering the impression that the party represented a left-wing agenda. But in the end these activists have generally ended up colouring within the moderate lines drawn by the party’s Wall Street backers. John Lewis, the recently deceased civil rights hero turned Democratic congressman, is a perfect example of this kind of progressive loyalist. A radical in the 1960s, he maintained his progressive credentials by defying the party leadership on a number of important occasions, including opposition to both Gulf Wars, NAFTA, Clinton’s regressive welfare reforms and the homophobic Defense of Marriage Act. But he has also played a key role in propping up the party’s neoliberal establishment. In 2016, he not only chose to back Clinton over Sanders for the presidential nomination, he even tried to discredit Sanders by claiming Sanders had exaggerated his involvement in the civil rights movement. He is also a staunch supporter of Israel and stood against the Black Lives Matter movement’s call to defend the police.

Since 2016, we have witnessed the emergence of a very different kind of progressive inside the Democratic Party: first with the Sanders campaign in 2016, then with the election to Congress of the Squad in 2018, and again this year with the election to Congress of other progressives, most famously Jamaal Bowman from New York and Cori Bush from Missouri. These figures look to grassroots struggles as an engine for social change; support transformative policies like the Green New Deal and Medicare for All; and—most crucially—are willing to stand up to party leadership on a host of controversial questions, such as defunding the police and support for Israel. This is very refreshing, but it will not fundamentally change the direction of the party.

My one hope is that these new progressives can at least caucus collectively and leverage their positions as a coherent voice inside Congress for left-wing movements on the ground. The pressure from inside the Democratic Party not to do this will be immense, though. To resist such pressures, grassroots movements will need to grow in size and strength, and the Squad and others will need to maintain close links with them. Meanwhile, the extra-parliamentary left will need to devote more resources to building the mass organisations and networks that can pose a left-wing alternative to the Democrats in the future. I would love to see inspiring fighters like Ilhan Omar, AOC, and Cori Bush at the helm of such a venture one day.

What are your wishes for 2021?

JZ: An end to the pandemic.

TL: To only hear the words ‘I think you’re muted, check your microphone?’ once a week instead of 4 times a day. Also, obviously, to crush fascism and the white supremacist patriarchy.

News from Germany and Berlin: 5 December, 2020

Weekly news roundup from Berlin and Germany


04/12/2020

Compiled by Ana Ferreira

 

NEWS FROM GERMANY

Right-wing arsonist addresses “Querdenker” rally in Frankfurt (Oder)

Hundreds of opponents of the corona measures from Germany and Poland demonstrated in Frankfurt (Oder). Many did not wear masks. The crowd chanted they were by no means right-wing extremists. However, the demonstration was held with people like Maik Schneider who has been twice sentenced by the Potsdam Regional Court for an arson attack on a Nauen gymnasium, which was supposed to serve as refugee accommodation. Also, according to René Wilke (die LINKE), the demonstration did not stand for the city society at all. “It was clearly largely people from outside the city.” Source: ,rbb

No Advent break for “Danni” protestors

Activists in the Dannenröder forest danced on Sunday, with two water cannons threatening them from behind the police barrier. When protesters tried to break through the barrier in order to prevent the tree houses from being cleared, an aggressive scuffle ensued, as can be seen on videos on the Internet. Hesse’s Green Minister of Transport Tarek Al-Wazir says that all legal possibilities concerning the Dannenröder have been exhausted. Only the federal government can now stop the project. The environmental association BUND objects and demands a plan amendment procedure. The Greens have been criticised nationwide because of the “Danni”. Source: ,taz

Germany bans ‘Sturmbrigade 44’ Nazis

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer banned the extremist group “Sturmbrigade 44.” The announcement came after a series of police raids against group members. This allows officials to confiscate propaganda material, with the aim of collecting evidence on right-wing extremist structures. Raids on the properties of 13 group members took place on last Tuesday morning in Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and North Rhine-Westphalia. The group has existed since 2016 and operates as a fixed structure. Its goal, supposed to be achieved even by force, was the “revival of a free fatherland” according to “Germanic moral law.” Source: ,dw

Intelligence Officer investigated for sympathies in Reich’s citizens’ movement

The Ministry of Defence announced on Tuesday evening that eight Bundeswehr employees in Ulm are under investigation. The reason for this is their sympathies for the Reich’s citizens’ movement. According to information of the “Spiegel”, among the suspects there is also an employee, who is said to have worked for the Federal Intelligence Service BND, and who still has many contacts there. There is also the suspicion of a network. According to SWR and ARD capital city studios, security circles confirmed the man considered the main suspect attempted suicide with a firearm on Wednesday morning and died later in hospital. Source: ,nd

Government declares war on racism and right-wing extremism

The Federal Cabinet has adopted a catalogue of measures against racism and right-wing extremism in Germany. The package contains 89 points, among them an amendment to the Basic Law. It also provides a study on everyday racism in civil society, businesses and public institutions and a research project to examine everyday police life. A council of experts is to advise the Federal Government on questions of integration, participation and in the fight against racism. Changes are also planned for criminal law: so-called enemy lists will in the future be just as punishable as anti-Semitic or racist incitement to hatred. Source: dw

NEWS FROM BERLIN

Second wave of short-time working – 200,000 unemployed in Berlin

Currently, at least every tenth person is unemployed in Berlin. However, the number of advertisements for short-time work has risen significantly, according to the Federal Employment Agency. Labour Senator Elke Breitenbach (die Linke) hopes that an intensive use of short-time work might save many companies and businesses from the worst and save jobs too. Furthermore, in the course of efforts to fill training places, it has become apparent that the Corona crisis has further reduced companies’ willingness to provide training. For this reason, the administration has announced that personal consultations will again be offered in employment agencies. Source: nd

Warning signals from the clinics

The pandemic situation remains tense despite closures and restrictions imposed. At the weekend, the Berlin Corona traffic light jumped into red for the criterion of intensive care bed occupancy for the first time. Dilek Kalayci (SPD) commented last Monday that individual hospitals such as the DRK-Klinikum Köpenick, Vivantes Neukölln, or the Auguste-Victoria-Klinikum would no longer accept Covid patients. As further measures to contain the pandemic, the health senator mentioned the increase in protective equipment. Franziska Leschewitz (die Linke) criticised the fact that only six vaccination centres are to be set up throughout Berlin on the issue of the distribution of vaccine doses. Source: nd

theleftberlin

News and activities for and about the international left in Berlin


theleftberlin.com was launched in October 2019 as a replacement for theleftberlin.wordpress.com, which had been the website for the Berlin LINKE Internationals. It shares its predecessor’s aim to inform non-Germans in Berlin about German politics and to let the German Left know about the international activists and organisations in their city.

theleftberlin is a website by activists for activists and an important part of the Website – and the weekly Newsletter that we produce – is informing people of activities and events in Berlin, especially those which are of interest to an audience which does not have German as its first language. We also want to reflect and contribute to the debate on the international Left.

Although theleftberlin maintains close links with the Berlin LINKE Internationals, it has an editorial autonomy and attempts to reflect a range of debate on the left. The editorial team has a short online meeting every Sunday to discuss the articles which we want to publish. Meetings are open, and we would love to see new faces on our editorial board.

We have taken a recent decision to concentrate on publishing original texts, translations of texts which were not previously available in English and the reproduction of important texts from the Global South which have not yet reached a Western audience. To help us do this, we are looking for more writers, editors and translators to join our team. We would also appreciate the help of IT people and anyone who is active on social media to publicize what we publish.

If you would like to know more about theleftberlin or are interested in joining our editorial team, please contact us at teamleftberlin@gmail.com. You can join our mailing list by adding your e-mail address in the bottom left of this page

Why are Abortion Rights under Attack in Brazil?

Speech from the meeting The Conspiracy Against Choice: Why abortion rights are under attack in Poland, Brazil and the USA, 2 December 2020


I would like to thank you all for the invitation, as well as Kristina, who puts me in contact with LINKE Internationals group in Berlin. It is always great to have the opportunity to connect and change ideas with people, activists and politics from other countries who are dealing with similar struggles, although in different countries and contexts.

Since this talk will be in English, I prepared something written. I hope it won’t be boring and I will be very happy to answer questions and doubts at the end of the presentation.

My name is Debora Thome, I am an associated researcher at LabGen-UFF, a gender center of studies, in Brazil.

Just to talk a little bit about my work. I started what I call my institutional life in feminism fighting for abortion rights in Brazil. I was a journalist. A friend, a former professor and an important activist in Brazil for abortion rights – was organizing a group to do advocacy pro-reproductive rights. She contacted me and invited me to integrate this group. Although the subject is hard, it was a great and funny group composed by feminists in their 70s. Most of them were 70 years old or around it and we together met with Supreme Court judges and some congressmen and women to try to pressure for abortion rights in Brazil.

It was the beginning of 2015, and a lot has happened since them. In my professional life, I decided to start a PhD in Political Science and I started also to train women candidates. The almost total absence of women in politics in Brazil was the main subject of my thesis. However, I never left the agenda of reproductive rights, women rights and my great old ladies feminist group. I will talk a little bit more about their work during this talk.

This was just to give some background.

Far away from the stereotype of women in bikinis, Brazil is a very sexist, misogynist, and religious country. It is the country with the highest number of Catholics (although our Catholicism can be not so intense). In this sense, it is important to mention this number is changing in the last few years with a rise of evangelicals from neo-Pentecostal churches. This new group of religious people are, many times, even more conservative in terms of preferences, and they also have the antiabortion agenda as one of their main discourses.

Talking about violence against women, Brazil has high rates of homicide, feminicides. Every two hours, a woman is murdered in the country usually from someone she knows. It means everyday 12 women and girls are victims of homicide in Brazil usually by their relatives, partners, ex-boyfriends. Just to complete this quick scenario, in 2018, following a wave of conservatism and political disillusion, Brazilians elected a far-right president and lots of far-right deputies. Nowadays, this far-right party is the second largest in number of seats in Congress.

Considering specifically the reproductive rights, abortion is allowed in three cases here in Brazil. Two of them have been allowed since 1940 (it means 80 years now). In the first case, the law guarantees the right of abortion when the woman was the victim of some violence – it means, rape. The second case permitting abortion is when the pregnancy signifies some threaten for the mother’s life. The third case was just allowed in 2012, and it refers to cases of anencephaly, when medicine cannot, in any situation, guarantee the life of this fetus.

In this third case, it is not a law, but a ‘guarantee’ based on a decision of the Supreme Court. As you can notice, the first two exceptions were decided almost a century ago, so why are feminists not given any new opportunity to have the right for a 12 weeks abortion? If you look from outside, this question seems reasonable. However, as we say in Portuguese, we are most of the time “drying the ice”. It means, our efforts in all these years were mostly to maintain things the way they are, avoiding the complete prohibition.

A recent study was written by three public health servants, using numbers from the public health system. The available data (as you know it is difficult to have good data for illegal abortion) between 2008 and 2015, shows there were about 200,000 hospitalizations per year because of abortion-related procedures. Since abortion is forbidden in Brazil, many people try to do it at home. It means many of these poor women are using knitting needle, natural beverage, or hangers to do the abortion themselves. Of this total of 200 thousand hospitalizations, less than 1 per cent – it numbers 1,600 – were for medical and legal reasons. From 2006 to 2015, there were 770 maternal deaths caused by abortion related problems. This number could increase 29% if you consider other possible deaths related with the usual abortion consequences.

We also have to remember women cannot say they had an abortion when they go to the hospital, because it is a crime and they can be arrested. Although official health data do not allow to estimate the number of abortions in Brazil, they do establish the profile of women at higher risk for death from abortion: black and indigenous women, with low educational levels, under 14 and over 40 years old, living in the North, Northeast and Central regions, without a partner.

According to a report from ‘Genero e Numero‘, a Brazilian feminist news media, from 1949 to 2019 (70 years) 275 bills were presented mentioning the word abortion at the Congress. Most of the bills that were pro-abortion were presented in two decades – 1990s and 2000. The initiatives that were biased against abortion (meaning increasing punishment and prohibiting legalized abortion), have been increasing, from 6% of the total in the 90s to 44% in the 2010s. We have to consider that, since 2019 we faced an increase of the bills that try to guarantee, the right of life since conception, and try to writte that in the Constitution. It is a way to prohibit any abortion. If any of them pass, Brazil would be the worst case in reproductive rights in Latin America, just as bad as El Salvador. Uruguay, Argentina and Mexico – are all examples of places where the abortion laws are becoming more permissive in the last few years.

Over seven decades, the PT – worker party – was the fifth party to present the largest number of bills against abortion: there were six, the same amount as the PSL (of President Jair Bolsonaro).

In 2002, the center-left, represented by the workers party won the election. Many of the feminists from the second wave were founders of the party. Many of them were participants of the 14 years government of the central left in Brazil. Yet, during these years, although other feminist agendas found space to increase, it was not the case with the abortion rights. Some scholars argue it is causally related to the fact that not just feminists were founders of the ‘Worker’s Party’, but also a giant group coming from the church, belonging to the liberation theology tradition. Considering this sexist country, with a huge space for Catholicism and conservatism, the abortion agenda was never an easy issue or a non-complex subject. So, even if we had 14 years to work on the improvement for reproductive rights, it didn’t seem to be a political preference from the party ruling the country.

It is worth noting that Brazil is also one of the countries with the lowest scores in women’s representation according to the ‘Inter Parliamentary Union’. It is the 133 among 197 countries. In this case, we have also to consider men are 80 per cent of the authors of the bills related to abortion rights. This an anachronism that horrified me, I have to confess. It is a shock each time I realize male deputies are the ones who decide about women’s bodies, women’s lives, and women’s futures.

So, backing into the old feminist ladies’ group pro-abortion rights who could not increase their agenda during Lula’s time… In the midst of a crisis, in 2015, the beginning of the second term of Dilma Rousseff, our first female president, this group of 10 women decided to arrive in Brasilia with a schedule of 15 meetings in 2 days. At that time, with a very conservative legislative, we considered the only space to improve abortion rights was to try our chances directly with the Supreme Court. Our work in Brasilia was the beginning of an attempt that some years later would be a way to guarantee an habeas corpus for a woman arrested for abortion.

At that time, we were counting on a support from public opinion, because few months earlier there were a famous case of a woman who died after making an illegal abortion in Rio de Janeiro. About this case, a small story. We, as group for pro-abortion rights, decided to send some flowers to the funeral. Yet, the family, when we arrived there rejected all of our condolences. Since they are evangelical, although the woman, her name was Jandira, was dead, their family considered this was the punishment she deserves.

We should have paid more attention to this event because it seems to be the rationale for the beliefs of many Brazilians right now.

Four years later and Jair Bolsonaro, a very conservative, far-right president, with an extensive right-wing agenda (anti-abortion rights, very misogynist, anti any LGBTQ+ agenda) was elected, with the strong support of the Catholics and evangelicals. This, again, put the feminists back to the role to watch out for a backlash.

It means: our work right now is to protect the laws and the rights we already have.

This year, during the pandemic, one of the cases, mentioned in the description of this talk, was symbolic. A 10-year-old girl, in an extremely poor family, was pregnant, after being raped by her uncle for 2 years. In her case, abortion was not just guaranteed by law since 1940, but also a question of survival, considering her age. Even in this context, the national secretary of women and human rights decided to use all her possibilities and power to forbid the abortion. First, the local hospital denied the possibility, then she made her functionaries to offer money to the family to not have an abortion. In the end, the girl had to travel, during the pandemic, to another state, 2 hours by plane, to have her and the family’s rights guaranteed. In the middle of this, feminists were working in many states in the country trying to guarantee that she could have the abortion. It was 4 days of calls, petitions, communication, advocacy. It worked.

The secretary, personally, tried to interfere in the process. Just to clarify how difficult the situation is now in Brazil.

Also, during the pandemic, a new rule increases the siege against abortion in Brazil. This law starts to compel health professionals to notify the police when they assist patients who want to do an abortion due to rape. This document also says doctors must inform the woman of the possibility of seeing the fetus on ultrasound – something that some experts consider this to be a way to demote the patient. The text also requires patients to sign a consent form with a list of possible complications of abortion.

Now, it is time to just dry the ice.