Before criticizing the act, Olímpio Moraes Filho, of the Medical Network for the Right to Decide, defends the possibility that women legally abort
I graduated in August 1986, here at the Federal University of Pernambuco. I did a specialization in Gynecology and Obstetrics, I did an internship at the USP in Sao Paulo and, on my return, I started working in the service where I work today, at the University of Pernambuco.
The master appeared and my transformation began, because I was conscientious objectorI thought how most of the population thinks, that abortion is a crime and that a woman is a criminal. I didn’t have many questions about it.
at the medical faculty no in-depth problems humanists and what’s behind laws like in Brazil, which generally block women’s rights and also public policies, which are not based on the best scientific evidence, but in faith or ignorance.
I only realized it when, at the master’s degree, after eight years of graduation, I was selected on the subject of abortion, which I hated at first. It bothered me a lot, but I couldn’t coordinate ideas to know why it bothered me.
When women provoked abortion, they were treated like real criminals. The doctors, our teachers, have guided us to suffer, to learn not to repeat this crime. They were women seen as dirty. Abortion is always something the woman has caused and she has to learn from her mistakes. She bothered me.
But then I started reading and I think so too free knowledge. Ignorance is what causes prejudice. I started thinking differently (…).
You begin to question the things you have experienced. Even raped women, the culture [machista] it’s so big I’m to blame. I also started seeing it in rape. Because women are raped and they begin to think within themselves that they are responsible for the violence they have suffered.
“I don’t know of women who have an abortion without the man having an abortion before. Nobody wants to know about the man, so much so that the law punishes only the woman, not the couple”.
[É] like assisting a 19 year old girl with a broken tooth, torn mouth. She came to tell me the story and she told me she was her her boyfriend. I asked if she wanted to sue her boyfriend about hers and she said no, because she loves her boyfriend about hers. “Do you love him?”, “Yes. I was wrong. She had already warned me not to wear lipstick.”
He is subjected to so much violence and is so vulnerable to rape that one sees the barbarism that happens, that he does not have the strength to report. She can’t think of being attacked and look for it [ajuda]. Because when it comes to the very instance of the state that guarantees it, of reception and justice, the state victimizes it again. She will seek help and will be victimized again, she will be accused, accused and will suffer another violence again.
first service
I wasn’t ready yet. I witnessed a military woman who was raped while practicing her profession. It was the most distressing thing, of which I had no idea. That thing really shocked me. It wasn’t easy, no. The doctors rebelled, even the nurses. Nobody wanted to participate.
Unfortunately, there has to be this torture and this misogynistic and revolting behavior for people to think: Is this really the case? Is this an attitude that should be done? This is learning from mistakes, trying to improve as a society and not turning back.
[Hoje] I would have treated you with more love, more compassion. I would have more empathy in that moment. I could have asked for help, consulted a psychologist and treated in a more humane way. But I wasn’t prepared for that.
The right not to have an abortion
It’s been law since 1940, but in college they don’t say it. They didn’t train us for service. It is a crime [o estupro], but we will not deal with a woman who has had an abortion. Even if it is not a crime, it was her fault, in the minds of the men of Medicine, of the Church, of everything. It is a subject that has not been touched upon.
One thing that doctors claim a lot, a right that the doctor has, is the right to conscientious objection. But in a broad, biomedical and universal sense, we doctors could not have conscientious objections.
It’s a human right, okay, but you also have the right to health, another human right. When you work as a doctor, you are valuing the right to health. You didn’t have to be a doctor.
If you have a conscientious objection to these things, go to architecture, go to engineering. But you chose it there. And worse: she chose to do gynecology and obstetrics. Why didn’t you go to dermatology?
“We, as doctors, must cause charity, not maleficence. Justice and autonomy. We cannot have a decency of medical ethics for men and another for women, considering that the word of man and woman have no autonomy “.
I have nothing against religion, but if a doctor is a Jehovah’s Witness, he cannot do Hematology. You can’t have heart surgery or obstetrics because bleeding is a cause of death. He cannot claim that he did not transfer the blood because he has a conscientious objection to the blood transfusion. Therefore, this conscientious objection cannot exist in our profession, because no one has been called or forced to be a doctor (…).
You have the right not to harm others. If you are a doctor, work in the SUS, receive a salary to promote health, knowing that abortion is part of the list of skills in your specialization, that violence against women is also part of the list you have been trained on and that there is a Medical Code of Ethics, the justice of the country that gives the right to few situations, but gives, and even when the case protected by the law arrives, do you deny it?
Belief x Science
My family is all Catholic, but I don’t have any conflicts. When I see a woman victim of violence, I feel like a doctor, I’m doing the right thing. I feel completely medical. I know I’m on the right side.
I am not a practicing religion, but I study. The historical man Christ, I’m a fan of him. He was a revolutionary and he was killed for it, for protecting women, the weak, from the ruling power. [Era] against the Old Testament, which is extremely sexist. He argued that adulterous women did not deserve to be stoned.
What I do here is much less than what Christ did. Of course, I don’t pretend to compare myself, but Christ was much bolder than Olympias.
The woman when she causes an abortion it’s the worst thing in the worldcauses terrible damage to his mental health, but the worst part is that he has no right to choose. He is forcing her to become pregnant against her will. The resulting psychological damage is much greater and can lead to suicide.
The leading cause of teenage suicide is forced pregnancy. He wants help, he wants contraception, he wants education to protect himself. Who will get her out of the violence? When she is afraid, she is criminalized, she decides for herself: either to die, or in a dangerous way. This secret is kept with her, she remains vulnerable and is soon pregnant again.
The world shows when you treat this issue as public health. Where it becomes law, it is [onde] the number of abortions is decreasing.
The report was given to journalist Juliana Steil last Monday, 27, by telephone.
* With editing by Estela Marques.
Source: Terra
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