RETROCESSES IN THE FIELD OF PUBLIC HEALTH:

ABORTION FROM A BIOPOLITICAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This article aims to analyze abortion from the theoretical frameworks of biopolitics, seeking to understand its criminalization in Brazil, as well as the barriers imposed on women who are in their legal right to perform it. Since in a patriarchal society what is sought is to inscribe this biopolitics on the female body, debating abortion as a public health problem constitutes a rather tortuous path, but not impossible. In this sense, the following question arises as a research problem: how the sexual and reproductive rights of women are constantly evaded not only by the institutions of power, but also by the entire social body that penalizes, in a broad sense, women who deny compulsory maternity, since in addition to being criminalized, they are also subject to death and mutilation resulting from clandestine procedures? Through a bibliographic study, using the hypothetical-deductive method, it was found that patriarchy is blinding society for the serious public health problem that the criminalization of abortion generates, to the extent that abortions are always carried out in virtue of its prohibition, showing only a clear cut of class and race, which only corroborates the biopolitical side of the theme.