Antiabortion legal mobilization in Brazil: Human rights as a field of contention

Abstract

This article analyzes the legal strategies used by the Brazilian antiabortion movement, observing its frames and argumentative strategies. It contextualizes the importance of the antiabortion movement within the recent conservative wave, as the movement had recently undergone a process of renewal, becoming one of the support bases for right-wing populist President Jair Bolsonaro’s government. The new configurations and strategies advanced by the movement reveal the centrality of lawyers and legal strategies, using the language of human rights. An analysis of court documents and public hearings at different political moments highlights recent shifts in antiabortion legal framings. While human rights language has always been ambivalent and contested, this article argues that what is taking place in the context of the reframed antiabortion movement is an appropriation (or misappropriation) of human rights, which distorts its most fundamental feature and advocates for anti-pluralist ends.