RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Since scriptwriter and audiovisual director Juliana Reis, 57, founded the ‘Milhas Pela Vida das Mulheres’ group in September 2019, some 1,700 women have died from complications resulting from illegal abortion in Brazil, according to estimates based on Ministry of Health data.
On the group’s website, a score is constantly updated with figures on abortion in Brazil, including mortality.
Founded to help women travel abroad and legally interrupt an unwanted pregnancy, the group has already helped 1,700 other women who wanted to interrupt their pregnancies.
For 214 of them, ‘Milhas’ enabled a trip to another country or even in Brazil, to legally perform the procedure in cities offering the service. Mexico, Colombia and Argentina, which passed the legalization of abortion on December 30th, are on the international route.
To enable means to help with guidance on where to perform the procedure, to assist the trip, even if at a distance, or even to pay the travel costs, stay and the procedure itself, the value of which is at least US$700 (about R$3,800), according to Juliana. The expenses are covered through donations.
“Who would donate miles to help a woman have an abortion?”
‘Milhas’ was born in 2017, when Juliana learned about the story of Brazilian Rebeca Mendes Silva Leite, who requested authorization from the STF (Federal Supreme Court) to have a legal abortion because she had no economic and emotional conditions to have a child. After her request was denied, Rebeca performed the procedure in Colombia, with the help of an NGO.
“It was the first abortion outside the country’s closet. For the first time, it was talked about not because of a famous woman’s courage who recounts what she did 15 years ago, but it is as if that abortion was occurring live. This touched me enormously,” says Juliana, who, touched, posted the question on Facebook: “Who would agree to donate miles to help other women have legal abortions in Colombia?” She got five likes.
“In May 2019, I read another story about a woman who wanted to have an abortion and I posted again, but this time I got 5,000 likes and 1,200 miles offered,” she says, pointing out the change in the way people around her received the topic. “The difference between now and then is that they are pushing our ceiling down,” she says, referring to the move promoted mainly by the Jair Bolsonaro government to change the rules for abortion in Brazil.
According to Juliana, it was the rise in pressure against abortion that prompted greater mobilization. And it is what will continue to drive Brazil towards the relaxation of laws based on organizations that support women’s right to decide on their pregnancies.
“The law that will decriminalize abortion here needs to be called Damares,” she says, referring to the Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights. “Thanks to her we have reached our limit and we have realized that we need to react”, she says. “Besides, there is an entire Latin America progressing. To criminalize abortion is beginning to be seen as a joke”.
Project has already assisted 214 women
As the project began, Juliana started to organize and plan how the help would be provided. First, collecting the miles offered by donors. Then, she started receiving financial donations through websites, such as Benfeitoria, a platform that joins social action projects for monthly support. By last Friday, January 15th, it had already collected R$4,500 – the monthly goal is R$6,500. It also relies on the support of artists and designers that donate amounts related to the sale of works and creations.
The help with travel costs varies according to the woman’s situation, who answers a questionnaire about her profile and pregnancy situation when getting in contact with Milhas. From then on, the best solution for each case is pursued.
Juliana says that in the initial planning, the goal was to help 20 women in one and a half years. But the number was ten times higher: since the group was founded, 214 women have been assisted to perform the procedure. Of these, 138 cases occurred within Brazil.
“In the cases established by Brazilian law, we also provide this financial assistance, to ensure women have the right to choose. The issue is that many of them, when they reach us, don’t even know that they can have a legal abortion here”, she says. The cases allowed in Brazil include pregnancy resulting from rape, pregnancy with risk to the woman’s health or life or a fetus with anencephaly.
Juliana recalls that the first trip of a woman fully assisted by Milhas was also the first time she flew to Colombia. Cost assistance was provided from the moment she obtained her passport.
But in addition to financial support, the group also provides the necessary assistance and information on where to have an abortion, amounts and how to proceed. Considering the women assisted by this type of aid, 1,700 requests for help have already been received.
“One of the things that shock me the most is to realize how many of them have me as the only person to talk to about what is happening in their lives, because they can’t trust anyone else,” she says. “We’ve already had many pro-life women asking for help”.
In 2021 alone, up to January 12th, she had already received 106 requests. “There are over ten a day, women who are anxious, distressed”. From those she helps, she receives messages of gratitude and donations so that others may be helped. “For each one we support, another four or five will be supported later”.
With legalization in Argentina, the project now is to charter buses
Of the 76 trips abroad, Colombia, Mexico and Argentina were the countries of destination. The latter, even before abortion was legalized late last year. Juliana explains that the law in Argentina allowed abortion, in addition to the same situations authorized in Brazil, in case of risk to the physical and psychological well-being of women. The same is true for Colombia. “This is a much more generous and welcoming environment for women. In Mexico, the practice was legalized in 2007.
“We have partner clinics in these locations, which charge lower prices for someone who travels using our mediation. We have developed a very close and cooperative relationship,” says Juliana, who celebrates the Argentine government’s recent decision to legalize abortion.
However, with the Covid pandemic, the country’s borders are closed. “We have not yet tried this full exercise of Argentinean legality. But we are already preparing an operation different from miles, but rather kilometers for women’s lives. We will organize bus trips, pick them up in their cities and travel there”.
“Everything we do is absolutely legal”
Juliana stresses that Milhas is legally shielded, since the criminalization of abortion imposed by the Brazilian State is only applicable in national territory. Here, for the pregnant woman, the penalty ranges from one to three years. For a third person who causes the abortion with her consent, it is from one to four years”.
“However, if it is performed in another country, the law is no longer applicable and does not represent a crime. It is not about supporting a crime, that’s what Minister of Health Eduardo Pazuello does when he makes it difficult for women to access legal abortion in the country, with conscientious objectors and ordinances,” he says.
“The abortion options for Brazilian women have always existed, and since long before Brazil existed, with practices of indigenous roots,” explains Juliana, who had three abortions during her life. The first one at the age of 16. The second at 29, in France, when she already had a daughter. “There it is legalized, I was reimbursed by social security, with days of rest, it is a whole different experience,” she says. And the third at 39, in a desired pregnancy, when she learned that the fetus was deformed.
“These are three very distinct situations that qualify me, humanely speaking, to be with these women I welcome today. And they qualify me to have a belief that opinions on abortion, yours, mine, whichever, have no relevance. The only opinion on abortion that has any relevance is the woman’s to decide whether or not to perform the procedure”.