Backlash and Counter-Backlash: Safeguarding Access to Legal Abortion in Brazil

This article addresses the backlash against reproductive rights during Jair Bolsonaro’s government, focusing on access to legal abortions. Although access to abortion is quite restricted in Brazil, under Bolsonaro it was further curtailed through institutionalised spaces of power. This was met by counter-backlash actions, with an intensification of feminist activism in an attempt to secure an agenda of hard-won reproductive rights. To address this struggle for reproductive rights and against restrictions, we focus our analysis on the high-profile media case of an 11-year‑old girl, pregnant after being raped.