The Public Defender's Office and the Defense of the Right to Abortion: a case study

Abstract

There are few studies in Brazil on the role of the Public Defender's Office in achieving reproductive justice and, specifically, in guaranteeing the right to abortion. The institutional paths are tortuous for those who request the termination of pregnancy in health services, with several barriers to access to the procedure even within legal parameters. In a scenario of legal restrictions and human rights violations, the Public Defender's Office acts as a mediator of demands with health services or through requests for judicial authorization from the courts. This article discusses pioneering actions and initiatives by the Public Defender's Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro in recent years to guarantee legal access to abortion, against threats of regression in law and practice.

Keywords
Abortion; Sexual and reproductive rights; Social justice; Public defender's office; Rio de Janeiro

Resumo

Existem poucos estudos no Brasil sobre o papel da Defensoria Pública para o alcance da justiça reprodutiva e, especificamente, para a garantia do direito ao aborto. Os caminhos institucionais são tortuosos para quem demanda a interrupção da gestação nos serviços de saúde, com diversas barreiras de acesso ao procedimento mesmo dentro dos parâmetros legais. Em um cenário de restrições legais e violações de direitos humanos, a Defensoria Pública constitui-se em mediadora das demandas que ocorrem no âmbito dos serviços de saúde, ou por meio de solicitação de autorização à Justiça. Discutem-se ações e iniciativas pioneiras da Defensoria Pública do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, nos últimos anos, para a garantia do acesso legal ao aborto e contra ameaças de retrocesso na lei e na prática.

Palavras-chave
Aborto; Direitos sexuais e reprodutivos; Justiça social; Defensoria pública; Rio de Janeiro

Resumen

Existen pocos estudios en Brasil sobre el papel de la Defensoría Pública para el alcance de la justicia reproductiva y, específicamente, para la garantía del derecho al aborto. Los caminos institucionales son tortuosos para quien pide la interrupción de la gestación en los servicios de salud, con diversas barreras para el acceso al procedimiento incluso dentro de los parámetros legales. En un escenario de restricciones legales y violaciones de derechos humanos, la Defensoría Pública se constituye en mediadora de las demandas ante los servicios de salud o por medio de solicitud de autorización judicial a la justicia. En los últimos años, se han discutido acciones e iniciativas pioneras de la Defensoría Pública del Estado de Río de Janeiro para la garantía del acceso legal al aborto, contra amenazas de retroceso en la ley y en la práctica.

Palabras clave
Aborto; Derechos sexuales y reproductivos; Justicia social; Defensoría pública; Río de Janeiro

Introduction

Brazilian legislation on abortion is restrictive, still dealing with it as a crime, as provided for in the Penal Code of 1940, allowing the termination of pregnancy only in cases of risk to life when it is the only means of saving the life of the pregnant woman or in cases of rape, in Article 128, II¹. In 2012, the Federal Supreme Court ruled that therapeutic early delivery in cases of anencephaly, a uniformly lethal malformation, was constitutional, but did not expressly extend this to other cases of fetal incompatibility or serious cases that do not result in the death of the newborn^2,3.

The fundamental right to health is guaranteed in Article 196 of the Federal Constitution as “a duty of the State, guaranteed by social and economic policies aimed at reducing the risk of disease and other hazards and providing universal and equal access to actions and services for its promotion, protection, and recovery”². In this sense, health is conceived in a broad sense, encompassing the physical, mental, and social well-being of individuals. The right to health includes universal, free, and unrestricted access to health services that perform legal abortions.

Among the legal grounds included in the Penal Code for access to legal abortion, there is no provision for termination in cases of risk to the physical health and severe psychological suffering of the pregnant woman; and the Supreme Court’s decision does not expressly include fetal anomalies other than anencephaly³.

As a result, there is a “gray area” of legality, and in practice, health professionals and legal practitioners will decide who should and should not have access to legal abortion. For example, there are situations in which a particular health condition, whether of the pregnant woman or the fetus, may be interpreted as not literally falling within the scope of the law. However, by legal analogy and application of the Federal Constitution, access to legal abortion could be authorized by the courts. The decision will depend on the judge’s understanding, who may deny access to abortion because they do not consider that the particular case falls within the permissions of the Penal Code, Article 128, II; or the decision of the Federal Supreme Court in Motion for Non-Compliance with a Fundamental Precept (ADPF) #54, which dealt only with cases of anencephaly.

Abortion legislation models that adopt non-punishable legal provisions, as in the case of Brazil, can convey the mistaken idea that some abortions are more socially acceptable than others⁴. Thus, access to abortion will depend on a decision to be made by a third party, such as doctors, parents, or judges, regardless of the wishes expressed by the pregnant person. In practice, this logic may represent a violation of human rights, such as the right to bodily autonomy, the right to health, and the right to equality and non-discrimination in access to health care. Such a requirement included in protocols and criminal laws disregards scientific evidence on the risks of unsafe abortion or human rights standards on abortion⁵.

This article considers that cases that fall within the so-called “gray area” should be considered legally admissible for access to abortion, in light of updated scientific evidence. For example, cases of risk to the health of the pregnant person, in addition to situations of imminent risk to the life of pregnant persons, should be analyzed, with informed decisions by the persons involved and their families. The importance of indirect causes of maternal mortality in Brazil, expressing pre-existing conditions aggravated by pregnancy, indicates potentially preventable deaths. Similarly, fetal anomalies incompatible with extrauterine life that also pose a risk to the life of the pregnant woman should be considered. This would require the adoption of more comprehensive legal interpretations based on fundamental principles and rights and human rights by health professionals and justice system operators.

In addition to “gray area” cases, there are pregnancies resulting from sexual violence, in which it is necessary to resort to the Public Defender’s Office to request that health services perform a legal abortion or to submit a request to the courts to obtain access to the procedure. In practice, access to legal abortion remains a veritable lottery⁶.

In addition to these barriers to access that arise from restrictive criminal law and its interpretation limited only to the cases expressly provided for in the law and cases of anencephaly, the provision of legal abortion services in the country is still insufficient. This situation is exacerbated in more remote areas, urban peripheries, and rural areas, in territories where black, indigenous, and poorer women reside, highlighting the ways in which institutional violence and multiple forms of discrimination manifest themselves in access to health care and reproductive justice⁷.

According to data from recent studies, the few legal abortion services available in Brazil mainly cater to cases of pregnancy after rape and, to a lesser extent, cases of anencephaly and others that require judicial authorization to perform the procedure^6,7. Although we do not have systematic data, in recent decades, we have seen a growing demand for access to abortion in the justice system, particularly before the Federal Supreme Court⁸.

Faced with numerous barriers and difficulties in accessing legal abortion, the Public Defender’s Offices of the states of the federation have shown potential to increase access when they act as a point of entry for legal abortion demands. In Brazil, studies on the role of the Public Defender’s Office in guaranteeing the right to abortion, its limits, and its potential are still rare. In a context of legal restrictions, human rights violations, constant threats of regression, and non-compliance with international commitments, the Public Defender’s Office facilitates access to rights, either by working directly with health services or by operationalizing access to justice through requests for judicial authorization.

The role of the Public Defender’s Office is established by the Constitution of the Republic to provide “comprehensive and free legal assistance to those who prove insufficient resources” (7, Art. 5, LXXIV). Following legislative changes, such as Constitutional Amendment No. 45/2004, a new direction has been given and the Public Defender’s Office now prioritizes institutional action based on the promotion of human rights, the defense of collective interests, and action in favor of socially stigmatized groups and victims of discrimination⁹. In a country like Brazil, marked by significant levels of economic and social inequality, the role of the Public Defender’s Office grows in importance to guarantee access to justice, contributing to the concept of equality not being merely formal¹⁰.

This article presents preliminary results from a study that examines the work of the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro (DPRJ) and its role in defending and promoting legal abortion. Its objective is to describe the actions that have been developed by this legal body to guarantee fundamental rights in the field of sexual and reproductive rights, with an emphasis on legal abortion.

The conceptual framework of reproductive justice¹¹ is central to this study, insofar as it proposes an understanding of autonomy and reproductive rights as inextricably linked to the recognition and appreciation of diversity, the promotion of gender and ethnic-racial equality, and full access to economic and social rights, including access to justice.

Notes on the method

We chose as a case study the work of the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro in recent years, in response to demands for legal access to abortion. The institution receives, classifies, and forwards requests for access to legal termination of pregnancy through administrative and/or judicial channels. It has functioned as a facilitator of the flow of demands between the Brazilian National Health System (SUS) and the Justice System, sometimes seeking to guarantee access to the right to abortion provided for by law, sometimes seeking a broader interpretation of current legislation to cover cases that are in the “gray area” in relation to the legality of access to abortion. The DPRJ has also played an important role on the national and international stage in defending sexual and reproductive rights and access to legal abortion.

This article is part of a broader study that aims to analyze the entry points for legal abortion requests, the profile of the applicants, the design of the service flows, the existing structure for welcoming and forwarding requests, including the training of professionals, the case follow-up flows, and the coordination and dialogue with health services and Justice System agencies. In this article, we specifically discuss the actions and initiatives of the DPRJ, beyond responding to individual requests, in public and collective processes to build and expand the legal framework and implement public policies in the area of sexual and reproductive rights and access to legal abortion.

The research sources are documentary and oral. Data production involves two main stages: interviews with professionals working at the DPRJ, including public defenders who deal with demands for access to abortion; and analysis of various documents such as studies, manuals, or instructions produced by the Public Defender’s Office on the subject of abortion, service records, petitions, official letters, and technical notes made available through access to the institution’s database and through interviews.

Seven interviews were conducted, only one in person and six via an online platform, with public defenders who worked directly on individual cases of access to legal abortion and/or in the context of institutional policy related to sexual and reproductive rights over the last five years. The interviews were individual and guided by a script with semi-structured questions recorded on audio for later transcription and analysis, preceded by the reading and signing of the Free and Informed Consent Form. The script of questions was divided into sections on the structure of the Public Defender’s Office, the flow of cases of legal termination of pregnancy, the profile of the people served and the demands that arrive, referrals and their outcomes, relationships with other institutions, promotional actions, the types of interventions by the institution with external bodies, the legal arguments used by the Public Defender’s Office, and the institutional barriers and difficulties encountered, considering the relevant ethical-moral or medical issues related to legal abortion.

The research project was submitted to the Research Ethics Committee of the Fernandes Filgueira Institute (IFF-FIOCRUZ) and cleared by opinion no. 7,296,334 on December 15, 2024.

Criminalization of abortion, reproduction of health inequalities, and reproductive injustice

Multiple studies in Brazil and Latin America have documented the discriminatory impact of the criminalization of abortion on the human rights of women, girls, and people with the capacity to gestate who are in situations of greater social vulnerability and who need access to quality abortion services^12,13.

In Brazil, Black women are more exposed to the risks inherent in unsafe abortion, according to the results of a study conducted in Salvador (Bahia), Recife (Pernambuco), and São Luís (Maranhão), Brazil, with 2,640 users admitted to public hospitals. They had twice the rate of serious and very serious complications from the procedure compared to white women, accounting for 47.9% of hospitalizations and 45.2% of deaths from this cause, compared to 24% and 17% for white women, respectively. They are also the ones who, in case of complications, access health services later and face more institutional barriers, especially the waiting time for a vacancy or bed (three times longer than that reported by white women)¹⁴.

The situation of greater social vulnerability of black women also translates into individual barriers to access post-abortion care. Factors such as fear of being mistreated and lack of money for transportation are responsible for delaying these women’s access to health services, putting them at greater risk¹⁵.

The National Abortion Survey (PNA), a study conducted in Brazil to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of induced abortion, was first conducted in 2010 and subsequently updated in 2016. The survey revealed that by the age of 40, one in five Brazilian women had had at least one abortion, and about half of them had to be hospitalized to complete the abortion¹⁴. The most recent PNA, from 2021, shows that the abortion rate has decreased but remains a major public health problem¹⁶. About 10% of women interviewed in 2021 said they had had at least one abortion in their lifetime (compared to 15% in 2010). It is estimated that one in seven women (13%) have had an abortion by the age of 40.

Abortion is an event that usually occurs early in women’s reproductive lives: the 2021 PNA found that 52% of women were around 19 years old when they had their first abortion. Abortion is more frequent among respondents with lower levels of education, black, brown, and indigenous women, and those living in the poorer regions of northern, northeastern, and central-western Brazil¹⁷.

Despite the fact that abortion is a common event in women’s lives, the law still criminalizes what should be treated as a health procedure. Complications from unsafe abortion are a major cause of obstetric hospitalizations in the country¹⁸.

According to the World Health Organization, more unsafe abortions occur when legislation is more restrictive¹⁹. The impacts of the criminalization of abortion on public health are visible through the high morbidity and mortality rates of women and girls, overburdening health systems in countries with restrictive laws²⁰. In addition, restrictive legal treatment restricts and stigmatizes access, even in cases where abortion is permitted by law, confirming previous studies^7,20.

In Brazil, unsafe abortion is one of the leading preventable causes of death among women and girls, along with hypertensive disorders, hemorrhages, and infections²¹. Studies on the impact of the criminalization of abortion within the justice system are still in their infancy^22,23.

In 2022, the Women’s Rights Clinic at the University of São Paulo published the research report “Abortion in Brazil: Substantive and Procedural Failures in the Criminalization of Women,” which highlighted that women belonging to vulnerable socioeconomic groups, black women, and women from low-income communities are the main targets of investigations and convictions²⁴. According to the research, the comments of judges and prosecutors in court and written decisions highlight the stigma surrounding abortion and prejudice against people who undergo it, which affects the right to a fair trial. This not only reflects but also contributes to the marginalization and vulnerability of certain groups of women and pregnant people (black, peripheral, poor), including those who would be entitled to legal abortion²⁴.

The intersections of gender, race, class, territory, generation, among others, must be considered in analyses of the issue, as they define trajectories and experiences: from having knowledge about one’s own rights and qualified information to seeking adequate care and performing the procedure safely^11,25.

In 2005, the Ministry of Health published the first Technical Note on Humanized Care for Abortion, which has not been updated since 2011²⁶. This document regulated services and guided the practice of health professionals in providing legal abortion care. Since then, the lack of updated regulations based on the best scientific evidence to guide health services and professionals has had an impact on access to and quality of this care, leading to discrimination and reproductive injustice.

Actions and initiatives of the Rio de Janeiro State Public Defender’s Office in defense of the right to abortion: preliminary results

The DPRJ operates through a “network of Public Defender’s Office bodies” – a term used by one interviewee – composed of service centers and coordinators for specific areas. Important actions and initiatives identified in the material consulted highlight the institutional focus and prioritization of the issue of access to legal abortion and the defense of sexual and reproductive rights over the last five years.

In cases involving pregnancy resulting from sexual violence, the DPRJ prioritizes, in most cases, extrajudicial interventions when health services refuse to perform abortions. An important initiative was the joint preparation by the Criminal Defense Coordination, the Women’s Rights Defense Coordination, and the Center Against Inequality of a technical document aimed at public defenders in the state’s municipalities, stating that: “In any situation of legally permitted abortion, it is the woman’s right to receive prompt and humane care in the public health system, and no judicial authorization of any kind is necessary,” based on the Ministry of Health’s 2005 Technical Standard for Humane Abortion Care and Federal Council of Medicine Resolution No. 1,989/2012 (DPRJ, Joint Technical Communication on Access to Legal Abortion through Extrajudicial Means, November 21, 2018). According to reports obtained in interviews, the objective was to avoid unnecessary referral of cases to the justice system when the law does not establish this requirement.

I can retrieve it to send to you, but I think it was a joint recommendation between the Human Rights Center, the Women’s Defense Center, the Women’s Coordination, and the Center for Combating Racism. We made a big recommendation about... A guideline for colleagues not to refer cases of legal abortion to the judiciary, right?” So that we could directly activate the health service networks, and we provided a model document with the legal grounds, right? By which the woman could be treated regardless of judicial authorization. (E2)

In other situations, when there are fetal malformations other than anencephaly, with a low probability of extrauterine life, or when it refers to a request for termination of a pregnancy at an advanced gestational age, the DPRJ takes the case to court. The demands are mainly referred by the Fernandes Figueira Institute, through its Medical Ethics Committee, and the most common point of entry at the DPRJ is the Center for the Defense of Human Rights (NUDEDH in the Portuguese acronym). It is clear that there is an agreement between this Center and the Institute for the reception of cases, prioritizing the speed with which requests are answered and forwarded to the courts. At the Center, a public defender is assigned to specifically address requests regarding sexual and reproductive rights, which include legal access to abortion.

NUDEDH is dedicated to assisting individuals or groups of people who have been subjected to torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, or serious institutional violence, as well as promoting and defending socially vulnerable groups, and acts by petitioning international human rights protection systems.

The promotion and defense of issues related to women’s rights and gender equality, more broadly, is concentrated in two bodies. First, the Center for the Defense of Women (NUDEM), which handles individual cases related to issues such as gender violence, obstetric violence, and the sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls, including access to legal abortion in cases of sexual violence.

The other body is the Coordination for the Defense of Women’s Rights (COMULHER), which deals with institutional policy itself, focused on promoting events, training, and partnerships with other coordination bodies, other external institutions, and civil society organizations to promote and implement public policies for women.

Another relevant body of the DPRJ is the CGAISM - Commission for the Guarantee of Comprehensive Care for Girls and Women, which, in an innovative initiative in conjunction with other state public defenders’ offices, issued Joint Recommendation 01/2024/02DRHRJ, on January 30, 2023, addressed to the Ministry of Health “to promote the expansion of the availability and quality of legal abortion services in the country”²⁷.

The Health Coordination Office (COSAU) is a body within the DPRJ structure. In a significant initiative, COSAU, in partnership with NUDEM, sent official letters to municipal health services in the state requesting information to map the flow of care for legal abortion cases. In addition, it carried out visits to health services to assess access to legal abortion.

Another issue in coordination is that we used to visit the facilities, so we would go and then, in 2022/2024, we had a series of maternity wards. In all the maternity wards, we asked about the abortion service, the existing service, right? About illegal abortion and how late-term abortion worked? So, in the maternity wards in the city of Rio, in the state maternity wards we visited, the logic was always the same: if I arrived at the maternity unit, under the Ministry of Health’s permissive policy, according to the municipality, they would do it, right? And what they didn’t do when there was a discrepancy in reports, they ended up referring to us. (E5)

The DPRJ innovates by drafting models of official letters and petitions with legal grounds to support demands for abortion provided for in extrajudicial and judicial law, in addition to guidance for referring cases that are in the “gray area” of legality and that require a more comprehensive interpretation of the legislation by the Judiciary, with a view to expanding access to legal abortion. Some examples of the demands that came through individual cases were pointed out in the interviews:

All this time, I had a colleague who came to me for help, in a district in the interior, in the lake region. There was a delay in the response to the court decision. The service was denied and she suffered a spontaneous miscarriage, already in the later stages of pregnancy. I even regret not having that sentence saved because the judge said: ‘if in fact there is no possibility of extrauterine life, that it will be born and die’. But she denied it. (E1)

We also had a case that was referred to us by the Forensic Institue. It was a girl who was pregnant by her father. She discovered the pregnancy late, a very poor family, very ignorant, you know? [...] This case was brought to court by the Public Defender’s Office of the region’s first response center, not by NUDEM, but the public defender contacted us and asked for technical support. [...]. I think this is the most emblematic case that we, that was handled there by NUDEM, that NUDEM provided support for, that we followed up on. (E02)

The DPRJ has been acting innovatively at the national and international levels, through Amicus Curiae, providing data from court cases on the impacts of restrictive criminal legislation. Responsible for the criminal defense of women accused of abortion in 64.7% of the cases distributed between 2005 and 2017 in the state of Rio de Janeiro, the DPRJ’s Directorate of Studies and Research on Access to Justice produced a study report entitled “Between death and prison: who are the women criminalized for abortion in Rio de Janeiro?”²⁸.

The results of the above-mentioned study identified the profile of women prosecuted for abortion in Rio de Janeiro, seeking to demonstrate the disproportionate impact that the criminalization of abortion has on a certain group of women. These results were presented at a public hearing at the Federal Supreme Court in August 2018, when ADPF 442, which deals with the decriminalization of abortion up to the twelfth week of pregnancy, was debated and is still pending a decision. These results were included in the Amicus Curiae brief in the case of Beatriz et al. v. El Salvador (case 13.378) before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the first case dealing with human rights violations resulting from the total criminalization of abortion in El Salvador. On its website, the Public Defender’s Office highlights that:

The case Beatriz et al. v. El Salvador is relevant to the issues faced in the daily work of the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro and is inseparable from discussions surrounding women’s sexual and reproductive rights, obstetric violence, criminalization, and maternal mortality, which have been the subject of extensive institutional action²⁹.

The brief highlighted that most of the defendants charged under Articles 124 and 126 of the Penal Code (causing abortion in oneself or allowing someone else to do so) were black and poor, and about 22% had not completed high school. The data indicated in this document, especially the characteristics of color and income of criminalized women, are not unique to the state of Rio de Janeiro. The trends regarding the disproportionate impact of the criminalization of abortion on black women, pointed out in the Public Defender’s study, are consistent with surveys of maternal mortality among black women in Brazil, with unsafe abortion being the fourth leading preventable cause (DPRJ, 2023, p. 11). According to the Public Defender’s Office, black women’s right to choose is stifled by their social condition, which pushes them to use unsafe methods in more advanced stages of pregnancy, with a high risk of death and frequent need for hospital admission for emergency care. It is common for women to be subjected to a new cycle of discrimination in the Unified Health System and to be denied adequate care based on preconceived ideas about their sexual and reproductive behavior (DPRJ, 2023, p. 11). The Public Defender’s Office report also points out that “after police investigations (52.3%), reports from hospitals/medical centers are the most common source of information for authorities about the practice of abortion, accounting for 30.9% of the total.” (DPRJ, 2023, p. 11).

Based on data collected on the activities of the Public Defender’s Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro over the last five years, and through the defense and promotion of access to legal abortion, the research reflects on the relevance and limits of the application of restrictive legislation on abortion to effectively guarantee access to health services from the perspective of reproductive justice, given the persistent barriers and the need for judicialization, even for cases provided for by law.

Final Considerations

The research focuses on the actions and initiatives of the DPRJ to promote reproductive justice and access to abortion, both in cases already provided for by law and in cases where it is necessary to request judicial authorization for termination of pregnancy, as they are considered to be in a “gray area” of legality.

The material produced in this study allowed us to present the pioneering work developed by a group of public defenders committed to sexual and reproductive rights, accumulating relevant initiatives through judicial and extrajudicial measures in individual cases, network involving various bodies in the DPRJ, and dialogue with other institutions.

At the national level, the DPRJ’s initiatives have played a central role in the recent political scenario in affirming the state’s obligation to guarantee access to legal abortion in the country, responding to threats of regression in legislation and the state’s failure to implement public health policies related to the issue.

The DPRJ innovates by dedicating itself to actions to promote and implement public policies for access to legal abortion, in addition to acting on individual demands or strategic litigation, always adopting a reproductive justice approach in its interventions. One example is the study published by the DPRJ that profiles women criminalized for abortion, who are black, young, uneducated, and living in urban peripheries.

In addition, it also innovates by reinforcing the non-necessity of requesting judicial authorization in cases provided for by law, and by monitoring the flow of care provided by health services in municipalities to ensure access to legal abortion without discrimination in any maternity ward or health service available in the state.

The issue of access to legal abortion raises complex questions about proportionality, legality, and reproductive justice. Some paradoxes still remain, such as the reference to the 1940 Penal Code to justify extrajudicial or judicial requests for access to legal abortion, despite its consequences, which are evident in court cases that mainly criminalize adolescents, women, and black pregnant people for having abortions, and in the recurring barriers to access to health care and justice, even in cases of legal abortion. Further studies are still needed to deepen knowledge about the state and national activities of public defenders and their impact in order to explore their limits and potential in guaranteeing sexual and reproductive rights.

• Galli B, Bonan C. The Public Defender's Office and the Defense of the Right to Abortion: a case study. Interface (Botucatu). 2026; 30: e250654 https://doi.org/10.1590/interface.250654
• Translator
  Félix Héctor Rigoli Caceres

Data Availability

The contents underlying the research text cannot be made publicly available. The data obtained in the interviews are anonymized for research purposes, as authorized by the Public Defender's Office of the State of Rio de Janeiro.

References

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  » https://www.defensoria.rj.def.br/noticia/detalhes/26002-DPRJ-requer-participacao-em-julgamento-internacional-sobre-aborto

Edited by

• Editor
  Antonio Pithon Cyrino https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9184-5927

• Associated editor
  Elaine Reis Brandão https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3682-6985

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  17 Apr 2026
• Date of issue
  2026

History

• Received
  27 May 2025
• Accepted
  15 Sept 2025