Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2021
Keywords
Abortion Rights, Misoprostol, Brazil, Self-Managed Abortion, Abortion Criminalization, Public Health Policy
Abstract
This article explores the criminal regulation of misoprostol as a controlled drug in Brazil as a new form of abortion criminalization. A qualitative analysis of Brazilian case law shows how the courts use a public health rhetoric of unsafe abortion to criminalize the distribution of misoprostol in the informal sector. Rather than an invention of the local bench, this judicial rhetoric reflects global public health discourse and policy on unsafe abortion and the double life of misoprostol as both an essential medicine and a controlled drug. In contrast to previous studies, the article shows that abortion criminalization is not the cause, but rather the consequence of misoprostol’s double life. In the last section, it draws on an outlier judgment of the case law to chart a regulatory future for misoprostol and its supply in the informal sector as a site of harm reduction and safe abortion in public health policy.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Mariana Prandini Assis & Joanna Erdman, "In the Name of Public Health: Misoprostol and the New Criminalization of Abortion in Brazil" (2021) 8:1 JL & Biosciences 1.
Included in
Food and Drug Law Commons, Health Law and Policy Commons, Human Rights Law Commons, Law and Gender Commons, Law and Society Commons, Medical Jurisprudence Commons
