ADVANCE ARTICLE: Catholic Social Thought, Politics and Human Dignity in the Brazilian Constitutional Assembly of 1987-1988 (American Journal of Legal History, 2019)

(image source: OUP)

First paragraph:

In 2012, the Brazilian Supreme Court handed down a final decision about one of the most controversial and relevant cases in its history. The majority of the court ruled that it is against the 1988 Constitution to frame the abortion of foetuses with anencephaly—a severe brain malformation that leads to death shortly after birth—as a crime. Although the briefness of the unborn’s potential life was largely considered, it seems like the key principle in which the Justices’ reasoning was based is dignity,1 which the court mentioned 299 times.

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