Analysis: Does bill suggesting abstinence as contraception usher in more conservative era in São Paulo?

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A bill on sex education for adolescents entitled ‘Escolhi esperar’ is causing a stir in the São Paulo City Council and worrying activists from social movements involved with the rights of women, children and adolescents.

Bill 813/2019, to be voted on this Thursday, June 17, sponsored by city councilor Rinaldi Digilio (PSL), proposes the creation of a program for the “prevention and awareness of early pregnancy,” with the holding of lectures, exhibitions, and other activities to “spread information about preventive and educational measures” on the matter.

Although the wording does not mention sexual abstinence or the promotion of sex only after marriage, female opposition city councilors claim that this would be the initiative’s true intention. “What worries us is that this bill, which is positive in principle, is a pretext for the adoption of abstinence as a public policy, limiting sex education on contraceptive methods, for instance, and protection against STDs [sexually transmitted diseases],” says city councilor Luana Alves (PSOL).

The opposition voted in favor of the draft in September, when the bill was intended to introduce a “Semana escolhi esperar” (I chose to wait week), with a program of specific activities in the month of March, rather than a permanent program – PSOL and PT city councilors even proposed the name “Semana de conscientização de métodos anticonceptivos” (contraceptive methods awareness week), which would focus on the right to a healthy and planned pregnancy.

However, for the second round of voting, Rinaldi Digilio submitted a substitute text with the proposal of a permanent public policy. If passed, the bill will be submitted to the sanction of mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB), who has already issued a positive opinion on the initiative. Nunes, who assumed the position of mayor of the São Paulo capital after the death of Bruno Covas, is linked to the City Council’s religious bench.

Read also: São Paulo city council endorses bill encouraging teenage sexual abstinence

In a note, the São Paulo City Hall said that the opinion “does not authorize any political-ideological inference.” “About sexual abstinence being an effective method to prevent early pregnancy, this choice is up to the teenager, and her life project. Abstinence will not be used by the municipality as a public policy to prevent teenage pregnancy,” it states.

Bill 813/2019 bears virtually the same name as the international movement I Chose to Wait – which has over 6 million followers on social networks – born in 2011 as an internet campaign created by evangelical pastor Nelson Júnior and his wife, Ângela Cristina, which preaches that sexual relations should only occur after marriage. The agenda has regained prominence in Brazil thanks to the Minister of Women, Family and Human Rights, Damares Alves who since the Jair Bolsonaro government’s inauguration advocates abstinence as a method to tackle early pregnancy and the spread of STDs in Brazil.

However, Rinaldi Digilio rejects any ideological slant in the bill. “I am not part of the institute [I Chose to Wait]. I know its founders, as I know pastors from all over Brazil,” he says. The author of the bill insists that what is planned are “lectures, conversation circles, and guidance given by health and education professionals to alert about the risks of early pregnancy,” which, according to him, “is the direct consequence of early sexual relations.” “We didn’t extinguish any contraceptive method, we simply included one more, which is primary prevention, showing what an early pregnancy can cause to a teenager’s life,” Digilio adds. The city councilor also says that he made himself available to change the name of the bill several times.

The debate over this bill intensified after PL 168/2021, which establishes the Program of Humanized Assistance to Legal and Legally Authorized Abortion in São Paulo was put to a vote, providing “reception, guidance, and appropriate clinical care, according to ethical, legal, and bioethical references, respecting the health of the person assisted” in cases of abortion provided by law – in cases of rape, anencephaly, or risk to the mother’s life – authored by PT and PSOL councilors, including Erika Hilton.

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Digilio accuses the opposition of wanting to “kill children in their mothers’ wombs” and of opposing the right to childhood. On June 12, the city councilor posted false information on his social networks claiming that a “study by Unicef [United Nations Children’s Fund] says that showing pornography to children is positive.” His post, in fact, distorts a text by the organization on how to better implement digital safety for children, which, days before the councilor’s post, had denied the fake news: “Unicef’s position is clear: no child should be exposed to harmful content, online or offline.”

Roberta Sato, spokesperson for the Butantan’s Regional Forum for the Rights of Children and Adolescents, says she is concerned about the religious slant in bills such as Digilio’s, which, according to her, overshadow the sexual violence suffered by children and adolescents. “The bill does not contemplate the prevention of abuse against this public, which is clear when the text says that early pregnancy is related to the ’causes and desires of each adolescent’, with no regard to sexual violence,” she comments. The specialist recalls the Espírito Santo case last year, in which a 10-year-old girl, raped since she was 6, was forced to be submitted to a legal abortion and suffered the harassment of ultraconservatives even inside the hospital.

Sato is among the activists who will take part this Thursday in a demonstration outside the City Hall against the I Chose to Wait bill, joined by feminist associations, which criticize that the bill holds women exclusively responsible for contraception and blames young women who become pregnant. “It is yet another form of repression of women, particularly in a society that preaches that boys can start their sex lives and girls should stay virgins,” says Luana Alves.

The advocacy of sexual abstinence as a method of preventing early pregnancy became popular in the 1990s in the United States, but has always been contested by scientists and health authorities. In the UK, a 2016 University of Exeter study analyzed 224 randomized clinical trials (considered the most accurate) of sex education in the school setting to determine the efficacy of abstinence-only-focused programs, compared to other methods, and proved that “abstinence-focused interventions are ineffective in promoting positive changes in sexual behavior.” The text follows: “In contrast, comprehensive interventions, programs focused on HIV prevention, and clinics in schools have been shown to be effective in improving awareness and changing attitudes and behaviors and health-related outcomes.”

“Talking about contraceptive methods that are grounded in religion is ineffective. It doesn’t work in the Church, it won’t work as public policy,” stresses Roberta Sato. She fears that, if passed in São Paulo, the I Chose to Wait bill will set a precedent for similar initiatives to occur in other municipalities and states. “This would open the floodgate for mass conservatism.”

Source: El Pais

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