Entrega voluntária para adoção: garantia estatal de liberdade na negativa do exercício da maternagem a mulher no Brasil

Abstract

The present study investigates the exercise of the refusal of motherhood without embarrassment by women in Brazil. It starts from the sociocultural determinism of the role of caring for offspring inherent to the female gender. The Wheels of the Exposed or Foundlings were used since colonial Brazil by pregnant women as a means of delivering children to be placed in another family. There were some unsuccessful attempts to institutionalize anonymous birth in Brazil to resolve the problem. From Laws no. 12,010/2009, n. 13,257/2016 and n. 13,509/2017, the national legislator established voluntary surrender for adoption, providing several rights to pregnant women, which includes the right to the secrecy of the birth. Despite the advent of legislative innovations, the institute is still little recognized in Brazil, mainly due to the prejudice that pregnant women face when trying to exercise it. In this context, the National Council of Justice published CNJ Resolution No. 485/2023, as well as a manual, to address the problem, prioritizing the promotion of the institute of voluntary surrender for adoption. The study's general objective is to investigate whether in Brazil there is a guarantee of the free exercise of the refusal of motherhood for women who wish to give their child up for adoption, from the point of view of fundamental rights. To this end, it problematizes the role of women, addresses the concepts of the myth of maternal love, the captivity of the mother-wife and maternalist discourse, deals with the Roda do Expostos, data on child abandonment, attempts to institutionalize anonymous birth in Brazil, the institute the voluntary delivery for adoption and the initiatives of the national courts with a view to giving visibility to the institute. In order to achieve the objectives proposed in this research, qualitative and bibliographical research of works by relevant authors was used, as well as the analysis of data provided by the National Council of Justice (CNJ) and the Brazilian Public Security Forum, in addition to data collection on national court websites. In the end, it is concluded that the social recognition of women's right to refuse motherhood is very important to ensure their self-determination and can be achieved through the humanization of their care from an intersectoral perspective and the reinforcement of their rights.