For the Special Bioethics Commission of the CNBB, ADPF 442 calls for “an extreme ethical aspect, the voluntary and conscious elimination of human lives, harming the principle of inviolability of human life, guaranteed by our Brazilian Constitution.”
Article 5 of the country’s Magna Carta states that “all are equal before the law, without distinction of any kind, guaranteeing Brazilians and foreigners residing in the country the inviolability of the right to life, freedom, equality, to security and property.’”
The commission stressed that life “must be protected with the utmost care, from conception onward.”
“From the fertilization of the egg, a life begins, which is not that of the father or the mother, but that of a new human being that develops on its own. It would be impossible to describe human development from another point, as if there were the spontaneous generation of a multicellular being,” the commission pointed out.
Therefore, “no relevant distinction, scientific or ethical, can be made between a fetus of less than 12 weeks and one with more weeks of gestational age or years of life.”
“Only arbitrariness can explain the different gestational limits within which abortion is allowed in different countries or even in different states within the same country,” the commission emphasized, calling for respecting the human person from conception and recognizing his or her rights, especially “the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life.”