Science Matters and Religion Must Not Influence Laws: A Brazilian Bill on Abortion
Rodrigo Hirata Willemart
School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, University of São Paulo, Brazil
willemart@usp.br
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Abstract: If a Brazilian bill becomes a law, adult women that have been raped and abort after 22 weeks may spend up to 20 years in jail. The raper will be released after 12 years maximum. The evangelical deputies supporting the bill argue the Bible says that only God can give and take lives. I show that (1) the double standards when interpreting the Bible is questionable, since the bible does not mention abortion, (2) other interpretations of the Bible and other religions are being ignored and (3) opinions should be weighed based on whether they follow the set of values and procedures of science. I conclude that science but not religion should influence laws.
Keywords: Bible, Christianism, faith, secularism, scientific methods
1. Introduction
If a Brazilian bill (PL 1904/2024) turns into a law, a raped adult woman that aborts after 22 weeks will get a sentence that equates to homicide and could be in jail for up to 20 years. In contrast, the rapist will not be in jail for more than 12 years (Haje and Seabra 2024). The bill is still under discussion, and as of 7-VII-2025, the author of the bill deputy Sóstenes Cavalcante, a far-right protestant priest at the Assembly of God, said in a television interview that he still strongly defends it. Deputy Cezinha de Madureira, another evangelical priest, ignored data presented to him that most Brazilians are against the new bill and answered that “My research is more precise than yours with absolute certainty, because I have God in my life, telling you that the Bible says only God can give and take lives, this is my research” (Bomfim 2024). The problem here is clear: religion is influencing the propositions of laws. Specifically in this case, one must discuss, in the XXI century, whether raped women have the right to abort in a country where 60% of the raped victims are under 13, and 38 girls aged 14 or younger give birth every day (Cariboni 2024; Cursino 2024).
The issue is that such discussions often end in “it is a matter of opinion”, with a binary, simplistic and subjective conclusion about who is right. Here I will argue that a way that may help getting around this is to distinguish scientific from faith-based methods and procedures. By understanding the fundamental differences, one understands opinions have different values depending on how they were constructed. Contesting policies motivated by religion is best done not only by objectively discussing what the problems of making such decisions based on religion are but also by contrasting scientific and religious ways of building knowledge (Willemart and Marques 2024).
Religion can be defined as a social system whose participants acknowledge belief in one or more supernatural agents whose approval must be sought (Dennet 2006; but see Ruppenthal 2020: eastern religions such as Hinduism sometimes do not fit precisely into Western definitions). Religion was a human creation that would have emerged primarily out of fear of future events, in which the more formidable the gods, the more submissive to them humans would be (Hume 1757). Elaborated burials thought to be religious are known from 30 thousand years ago (Dunbar 2014).
Hundreds of religions have existed and still exist today, the main ones today being (measured in number of followers are and in alphabetic order): Baha´ie (foi), Buddhism, Cao Dai, Christianity, Confucionism, Mormonism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Santeria, Shintoism, Sikhism, Tenrikyo, Taoism and Zoroastrism (Ambalu et al 2014). The list goes on, as there are hundreds of religions, Gods, and creation myths around the world (Skybreak 2006). Christianity itself is subdivided in many subgroups with different beliefs. This leads to different interpretations of the Bible among Christians themselves, leading to different opinions on abortion (Table 1). Because they are not sustained by data, are faith-based and subjective, it is hard to say which one would be right, blurring a project of a law inspired in a religious idea.
Table 1. Some religions group´s positions on abortion (modified from Pew Research Center review of outside literature) (Masci 2016)
2. Scientific values and procedures and how they differ from religion
Ken Miller (2008) defines science as “the human activity of seeking natural explanations to what we observe in the world around us. Science does this through observation, experimentation, and logical argumentation while maintaining strict empirical standards and skepticism. Scientific explanations are built on observations, hypotheses, and theories.” Although science can question the supernatural, it operates within the natural world, while religion is tied to supernatural phenomena. Science is about questioning, seeking evidence, testing hypotheses, constructing, and deconstructing, tearing down, starting over until you reach solid testable conclusions (Table 2). These are not values of religions.
Table 2. A summary of some core values and procedures of science (modified from Willemart 2025)
Deciding whether one should or should not abort based on the interpretation of a book written 2000 years ago that does not follow any of the values and procedures in Table 2 is not a decision based on evidence. People normally do not get into airplanes that have not been constructed based on solid data. Why would it be ok to propose such new bill on abortion without considering solid data on fetus neuronal development, women´s social, health and psychological issues or the profile of women that abort after 20 weeks, among many others? For example, Foster and Kimport (2013), based on data, reported that “Most women seeking later abortion fit at least one of five profiles: They were raising children alone, were depressed or using illicit substances, were in conflict with a male partner or experiencing domestic violence, had trouble deciding and then had access problems, or were young and nulliparous.” Basically, poor and young women. This adds complexity to the discussion. One should not ignore data.
If science has not answered all the important questions on these subjects, which it has surely not, then more projects on the subject should be funded, but decisions should be based on what we already know, as we do in every other field. Following the values and procedures in Table 2, one maximizes the chances of detecting biases, considering complexities, exceptions, and continuity in answering questions, in contrast to “yes” or “no” answers. Ground a bill proposal on the subjective interpretation of the Bible about abortion has still other issues, which I present below.
3. Bible interpretation and double standards
The Bible does not mention abortion explicitly, but several versicles are used by some Christians to reject abortion. The sentence “You shall not murder.”(Exodus 20:13) is an example. Exodus 21:22-25 is also said to be against abortion: “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”; Another example is Psalm 139:13-16: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” Some verses are interpreted as “only God can give and take lives”: ‘See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand”(Deuteronomy 32:39) and “And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Jobs 1:21).
These five chapters and versicles are examples of how there is need to interpret to get from what is written to abortion. At the same time, very explicit messages in the Bible such as the ones below are, luckily, ignored: “But if this thing is true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the young lady, then they shall bring out the young lady to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done folly in Israel, to play the prostitute in her father’s house” (Deuteronomy 22: 20-21); “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.” (Ephesians 6: 5); “If a man has sexual relations with another man, they have done a disgusting thing, and both shall be put to death. They are responsible for their own death” (Leviticus 20:13). Twenty percent of north Americans, which corresponds to 70 million people only in the US, interprets the Bible literally (Newport 2022). In Brazil, 30% of the population are evangelical Christians (Carvalho 2023), which also corresponds to millions of literalists when the Bible is concerned. Therefore, having laws based on religion is, to say the least, very dangerous.
4. Conclusion
Scientists follow scientific values and procedures that are our best shot at providing solid data. Solid data, and not subjective opinions, should be the foundation of every major decision in society. Religion has an important part in society (Espinosa 2023; Reddish and Tong, 2023; Oxley 2024) but does not generate solid empirical data, allowing subjectivity and biases to play a key role, making it unsuitable to motivate laws. Back in 2014, Brazilian deputy Marco Feliciano, an evangelical priest, presented a bill to turn teaching of creationism mandatory in schools, a discussion that the US has seen before (Miller 2008). Scientists, among others, protested and the bill did not become a law. Now Cavalcante brings back religion as motivation for this new bill on abortion. Following a mass population protest, the discussion about the bill has been postponed. Which will be the next move? Scientific values and procedures should walk hand in hand with society and policies (Marteau 2023), or the society itself will pay the price.
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