LAUSR

Correspondence C. C. Cunha Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Rua São Francisco Xavier 524, Rio de Janeiro, RJ 20550-900, Brasil. [email protected] On April 24, 2021, a live online event by a feminist collective on the “journey of women living with HIV/AIDS” denounced the harsh terms of Ruling n. 13/2021 issued on April 19 by the Secretariat of Science and Technology (SCTIE) of the Brazilian Ministry of Health 1. The ruling provides for subdermal etonogestrel implant, a hormonal long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) with three years of activity as a “strategy for the prevention of unwanted pregnancy” for certain “childbearingage” women. The ruling is backed by a report by the National Commission for the Incorporation of Technologies in the Unified Health System (CONITEC) 2, under the Brazilian Ministry of Health, issuing conclusions on the budget impact of the method ́s universal deployment and violating the principle of universal and equitable care in the Brazilian Unified National Health System (SUS) and the autonomy of these women over their bodies and reproductive lives. The ruling merits discussion because of what it represents as a setback in an agenda that acknowledges women1s sexual and reproductive rights. This is particularly true for women that suffer social discrimination and stigmatization of the diseased body, the body viewed as belonging to the streets, and the incarcerated body. These three versions of the body sustain metaphors of risk and danger 3 and reactivate historically observed practices of control 4. The current article addresses this situation in which narratives threaten rights, specifically with Ruling n. 13/2021, shedding light on a debate that features a background of victories in the field of women’s rights, associating academic analyses in which biopolitics are woven into a form of control over what are interpreted as deviant female bodies, thereby threatening an agenda of sexual and reproductive rights for certain groups of women. Importantly, the antecedents for the agenda of sexual and reproductive rights were the issues of population and women, respectively, in the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo (Egypt) in 1994 and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (China) ,in 1995. The sexual and reproductive rights agenda was thus included in previously legitimized areas and did not represent a specific field of regulation 5. The Cairo Conference was a key moment in building a certain “semantic field on reproduction” (reproductive health, reproductive rights), but also on sexuality as an issue to be consolidated in the human rights agenda. It was essential for the Action Program of the Conference to include definitions of reproductive rights and reproductive health as a “state of complete physical, mental, and social