Mulheres que resistem : as jornalistas e o aborto na imprensa brasileira

Abstract

This thesis analyzes how women journalists, drawing on their professional practice, develop discursive tactics to address abortion in the Brazilian press, in dialogue with the struggle for reproductive autonomy. It starts from the premise that these professionals mobilize tactics that articulate the ethical and institutional devices of journalism, producing dissident perspectives that put pressure on hegemonic truth regimes about abortion. The research adopts a qualitative approach and combines a survey, answered by 158 journalists from different regions and media, with 26 in-depth interviews with professionals who had already covered the topic, conducted between September and November 2025. Data analysis was carried out through Discourse Analysis, using an archaeogenealogical method inspired by Foucault and articulating theoretical references on biopower and biopolitics, precarious life, insurgent citizenship, feminist gender studies, and debates on subjective journalism. The results indicate that abortion coverage emerges predominantly from the initiative of women journalists and that criminalization directly affects press freedom by opening space for legal harassment against journalists and media organizations, especially driven by anti-abortion groups. Finally, the study observes that the interviewees tend to adopt a situated and openly committed professional practice, even if not always consciously, formulating discursive tactics that produce dissident meanings about abortion and seek to shape social imaginaries, thereby contributing both to the defense of reproductive autonomy and to understanding journalism as a practice with transformative potential in the field of reproductive rights.