RIO DE JANEIRO -- Before
her son was born, Danielle Alves didn't know Luiz Gustavo would have microcephaly,
a condition that has left the 3-year-old so disabled he can't walk, talk or eat
without help.Still, Alves says she would have gone ahead with the pregnancy
even if she had known -- and she thinks thousands of pregnant women caught up
in Brazil's Zika virus outbreak should be required to do the same.
Investigating link
between Zika and birth defects
"I know it's very difficult to have a special needs child,
but I'm absolutely against abortion," said Alves, who lives in Vitoria da
Conquista, a city in the impoverished northeastern region where Brazil's tandem
Zika and microcephaly outbreaks have been centered.
Alarm in recent months over the Zika virus, which many
researchers believe can cause microcephaly in the fetuses of pregnant women,
has prompted calls, both inside and outside Brazil, to loosen a near-ban on
abortion in the world's most populous Catholic country.
But push for abortion rights is creating a backlash,
particularly among the families of disabled children. Many have taken to social
media apps like Facebook and WhatsApp, where more than half of Brazil's 200
million people are connected, to make their case. They argue that all babies,
including those with severe forms of microcephaly, have a right to be born.
The Catholic Church and Pentecostal faiths, strong forces in
this deeply religious country, have also been fighting back."Abortion is not the answer to the Zika virus, we need to
value life in whatever situation or condition it may be," Sergio da Rocha,
the president of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops, said earlier
this week.
Abortion is illegal except in cases of rape, danger to the
mother's life or anencephaly, another birth defect involving the brain --
although in practice wealthy women in urban areas have relatively easy access
to safe abortions in private clinics, while the poor often rely on dicey
back-alley procedures.
The growing national debate is also spilling out into the
courts, and will likely intensify in the months to come.A judge in the central city of Goiania has said he will
authorize abortions in severe cases of microcephaly. Some of the nation's top
newspapers have also weighed in, running editorials urging abortion laws to be
revisited.
"The most logical solution would be to revise the penal
code relating to abortion, decriminalizing the practice. The legislation is
three-quarters of a century old," the daily Folha de S. Paulo said in a
recent editorial.A prominent group of attorneys and psychologists is preparing a
lawsuit calling for women infected with Zika during their pregnancies to be
allowed to get legal abortions.
The group, which in 2012 won an eight-year
legal battle that succeeded in adding anencephaly to justifications for
obtaining a legal abortion, hopes to take the suit before Brazil's Supreme
Court early this year.Before the outbreak, groups that support abortion groups were on
the defensive following a proposal by the powerful Pentecostal lobby that would
further restrict abortion access by adding additional hurdles for rape victims,
such as getting an exam and filing a police report. 
The proposal has been
approved by a House of Representatives committee, though its prospects in the
full chamber are unclear.When the first case of Zika was discovered in Brazil in the
middle of last year, health officials here weren't unduly worried. First
detected in a Ugandan forest in 1947, Zika has spread to parts of Asia and
Oceania and is thought to have made the leap to Brazil through one or more
infected tourists visiting the South American nation for the 2014 World Cup or
perhaps an international canoeing tournament in Rio de Janeiro the same year.
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