Capitalism and criminalization of popular practices: the question of abortion

Abstract

The research developed here concerns the criminalization of popular practices by women, triggered around the 16th century, a period in which the rise of the capitalist mode of production took place with its respective transformations in the western world, involving the whole of social life. From this historical approach, we sought to reflect the legacy of such a process in contemporary society. The starting point is the social relations modified from modernity, whose political and religious system condemned some practices that were once common at the time, especially affecting women, who, in the course of time, lost their spaces in public life and were condemned to private life. Such alterations aimed to guarantee the necessary conditions for the development of capitalism. Motherhood, childhood and the family occupied a central position for the realization of these changes. In contemporary Brazil, the result of this historic loss of women’s autonomy can be seen in the 500,000 clandestine pregnancy interruptions that take place annually. Of this total, about half of the women resort to the Unified Health System due to complications related to abortion. Contributes to making this situation even more serious data from the Ministry of Health, which report that approximately four women die a day as a result of this practice.