Acknowledgements
This paper was originally published in the Sexuality Policy Watch Newsletter No.8, 2010, and reprinted online on RH Reality Check, 15 June 2010, at: <www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2010/06/13/abortion-human-rights-current-controversy-brazil>. The Stop press was updated from the Sexuality Policy Watch Newsletter No.9, October 2010.
Notes
* The III Program calls for reform of amnesty law, abortion, same-sex civil union, media regulation and land reform, in addition to a truth commission to investigate torture, killings and disappearances during military rule (1964 to 1985), similar to that of Argentina and Chile.
* Unsafe abortion is indeed a major public health problem in Brazil: roughly one in five Brazilian women have an abortion in their lifetime, and many end up in hospital with complications that need never have occurred if abortion had been legal.
* Ironically, the US delegation did not join the consensus, for reasons that are not yet clear.