New women’s minister was trained to do abortions, had two of her own children aborted

by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman

February 14, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Brazil’s new Women’s Policy Minister, Eleonora Menicucci, was trained in Colombia to personally perform abortions, according to an interview published yesterday by Brazilian columnist Reinaldo Azevedo.

Speaking about her past as a militant, Menicucci notes that in 1995 “I was a member of a Feminist Sexuality and Health Collective, and, at that time, through the Collective, I was also doing a course on abortion in Colombia.”

Eleonora Menicucci

Asked “what was that course on abortion like?” Menicucci responds, “It was in the abortion clinics. We learned to do abortions.”  She adds that the purpose was to “self-train” so that “non-doctors could deal with abortions.”

During the course of the interview, Menicucci adds that the abortions were “suction abortions,” also known as “Manual Inter-Uterine Aspiration” abortions.

Abortion was illegal in Colombia in 1995, where most abortions continue to be prohibited today.  In addition to performing abortions, Menicucci admits to having had at least one of her two abortions in Brazil, where the procedure is also illegal in all but cases of rape.

The interview, which was conducted in 2004 and discovered by Azevedo in the archives of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, reveals much about the worldview of the one who has been selected to oversee women’s policy for the Brazil’s executive branch.

Menicucci says that she had one of her unborn children killed while she was engaged in armed struggle against the government in the 1970s, because the terrorist organization she had joined decided that it wasn’t compatible with her activities as a member.

“My judgment was that I had to carry out the armed struggle… And an important detail in that course (of action) is that, six months after my daughter was born, I was impregnated again,” Manicucci tells the interviewer.

“At that point, together with the organization, we decided, the organization, us, that I should have an abortion. In the situation, to have another child, no?...That was the second abortion that I did,” she says.

Menicucci reveals that she was so sexually promiscuous that she was “very much questioned” by the left, and that the revolutionary group of which she was a member, “for security reasons,” wanted her to “only have sexual relations with members of my organization.”

Menicucci also discusses her first lesbian encounter - which occurred while she was married. However, she assures her interviewer, there was no problem because “he was a very libertarian guy.” 

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has stirred controversy in Brazil in recent days by her appointment of Menicucci, who was incarcerated with Rousseff during the 1970s, when they were arrested for terrorism. Menicucci’s unapologetic pro-abortion stance seems to belie Rousseff’s claim to be pro-life, which was key to her victory in the 2010 presidential elections.

Menicucci is scheduled to speak this week at the United Nations, when she will reportedly make assurances that the Brazilian executive is combating pro-life legislation.