O Serviço Social no atendimento às mulheres em situação de aborto: desafios à garantia da autonomia das mulheres

Abstract

The present Final Paper aimed to contribute to the debate about the Social Worker role related to the assistance with women in situations of abortion. Moreover, we aim to develop this research starting from the categories of analysis that have shown to be relevant and coherent to this investigation process; to analyze the vision and the performance of Social Workers in regards to the assistance povided to women in situations of abortion in Brazil. In addition, for this purpose, we aim to register the Professional Competences and Assignments defined by the professionals and reflect on the existence of ethical-political and professional values in the practice of Social Workers. In this way, from the bibliographic research in the annals of the 15th and 16th Brazilian Congress of Social Workers (BCSW), we analyze how the vision and performance of Social Workers is configured in the care of women in situations of abortion in Brazil, registering the skills, professional attributions and the challenges defined by the professionals regarding the existence of ethical-political and professional values, observing possible conservative attitudes on the professional practice. Thus, the adoption of the historical-dialectical materialist method allowed us to think about this problem in all the contradictory social-capitalist relations, considering the capitalism-patriarchy as an unit. Hence, the research results showed us that the interest in discussing abortion is predominantly female, with all women authors, besides that in these articles there are no detail on professional performance, but there is a concern to understand the issue of abortion as human right and in the light of the professional ethical-political project. From this analysis, it was also possible to apprehend the competences, being the accomplishment of studies that trace the socioeconomic profile of the women attended, the quality of the service provided to the population that serves as a basis for the improvement of services in the public administration entities and among the categories of professionals involved. The attributions are about the orientation regarding the rights guaranteed by Brazilian legislation, as well as the penalties provided by the penal code; educational work with women for a free and conscious choice. The challenges to guaranteeing women's sexual and reproductive rights are hindered by the conservatism of Brazilian legislation, supported by a fundamentalist federal parliament that, through laws and ordinances, makes access to abortion difficult even in the cases permitted by the 1940 Penal Code. Another challenge is to disassociate certain individual moral and religious values from Social Workers who conflict with the fundamental principles of the Code of Professional Ethics, guided by the defense of freedom, autonomy and emancipation. Thus and so, this research sought to contribute with a critical analysis on the theme of abortion for the various subjects of civil society, to raise the awareness of the professional teams that assist in legal abortion services, especially the group of Social Workers. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the debate on the abortion subject matter and professional practice, understanding the competences and duties in legal abortion services, detaching themselves from conservative practices, as well as expanding academic production in this area, which is still fairly discussed in the professional field, in order to give more visibility to the topic, in the perspective of meeting feminist demands for the expansion of women's rights and autonomy.