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Articles • Horiz. antropol. 31 (73) • Sep-Dec 2025 • https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9983e730410 linkcopy

Open-access Voluntary relinquishment: Moralities and hierarchization of rights in legal-legislative initiatives in Brazil

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Abstract

We examine the legal and legislative initiatives concerning the relinquishment of children for adoption currently being implemented in Brazil. Voluntary Relinquishment is a right guaranteed to pregnant individuals under Law 13.509/2017. Our analysis focuses on State-sponsored efforts to promote this practice, particularly state and municipal laws mandating informational signage in healthcare settings, as well as programs and campaigns spearheaded by the Judiciary. These initiatives generate moral regimes grounded in representations of ‘dangerous’ or ‘abandoning’ mothers, abortion, and infanticide, which are used to justify and intensify the regulation of motherhood. We link this process to a new pedagogy of family institutions as a State policy, one that prioritizes the relinquishment of children for adoption and enacts a specific hierarchy of rights between children and women (or gestating persons). The emphasis on child protection policy ultimately overrides reproductive rights and eclipses the broader, revitalized debate on reproductive justice.

Keywords:
voluntary relinquishment; motherhood; state; reproductive governance

Resumo

Analisamos as iniciativas jurídico-legislativas sobre a entrega de crianças para adoção que vêm sendo implementadas no Brasil. A entrega voluntária é um direito garantido à gestante, regulamentado pela Lei nº 13.509/2017. Realizamos análise de iniciativas estatais de promoção da entrega voluntária, especialmente leis estaduais e municipais, que estabelecem obrigatoriamente placas informativas sobre a prática nos serviços de saúde, bem como programas e campanhas no âmbito do Poder Judiciário. Essas iniciativas produzem regimes morais baseados em representações sobre mães perigosas, mães abandonantes, aborto, infanticídio, para justificar e intensificar a regulação da maternidade. Relacionamos esse processo a uma nova pedagogia das instituições familiares como política de Estado, que prioriza a doação de crianças à adoção e materializa uma certa hierarquização de direitos de crianças e de mulheres (pessoas que gestam). A tônica em torno das políticas de proteção à infância acaba por sobrepujar direitos reprodutivos e todo o revigorado debate sobre justiça reprodutiva.

Palavras-chave:
entrega voluntária; maternidade; Estado; governança reprodutiva

Background1

Voluntary Relinquishment (VR) has been provided for since 2009 under Article 19-A of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent (onwards SCA or statute) (Brasil, 1990). The law allows pregnant and postpartum women to make decisions regarding parenthood by choosing to place their child for adoption. Recognized as a child’s right, this legal provision was incorporated into the SCA through Law No. 12,010/09, as part of the reformed adoption framework in Brazil (Rinaldi, 2019). In 2017, Law No. 13,509/17 formalized the VR procedure, establishing new parameters and placing its stewardship under the authority of the Judiciary (Brasil, 2017). This legal framework promotes a prompt and humane process for the relinquishment of infants for adoption and guarantees rights to the birthing mother, including confidentiality of childbirth, access to legal and psychosocial support, and referral to the social assistance network.

In the regulation of VR, legislative reforms have primarily centered on the role of the birth mother, with the aim of preventing the abandonment of newborns in public spaces and discouraging the placement of children with individuals who “lack the appropriate social, psychological, and moral capacity” to adopt (Brasil, 2023a, p. 14). These reforms, initiated in 2009, are intended to differentiate this legal mechanism from other forms of child circulation, such as extrajudicial adoptions. The latter have come under increased judicial scrutiny following the formalization of VR procedures in Brazil.

To advance VR in line with these principles, a series of initiatives have been implemented by the Judiciary in partnership with the Public Health sector, aiming to raise awareness of this legal right. These efforts include the placement of informational signage in both public and private healthcare facilities, as well as the development of awareness campaigns, educational programs, and outreach activities led by regional judicial bodies. The Manual on Voluntary Relinquishment, published in 2023 by the NCJ, affirms that judicial services must ensure women receive support and “the necessary assistance to exercise motherhood in an appropriate and responsible manner, as well as access to other public policies, should they so wish” (Brasil, 2023a, p. 33).

We approach this normative framework, which encompasses outreach campaigns and official guidelines, not merely as a collection of bureaucratic instruments, but as a set of documents that operate as dispositifs: mechanisms capable of organizing, regulating, articulating, and shaping subjects, affects, and social relations (Vianna, 2014). Given the case under analysis, these are subjects, emotions, and relationships whose ability to exercise parenthood, form families, and claim kinship is rendered legitimate through their engagement with the State. We argue that a new pedagogical logic is emerging, one that promotes the automatization of adoption processes. This logic appears to neglect, among other things, Article 163 of the SCA, which defines adoption as an exceptional measure and prioritizes maintaining the child within their family of origin. The statute explicitly affirms that the lack or insufficiency of material resources shall not constitute sufficient grounds for the loss or suspension of parental authority (Brasil, 1990, art. 23).

Our opinion is that the dispositif of VR is situated within the framework of children’s rights, rather than within the fields of reproductive rights or reproductive justice (Ross, 2017). More broadly, it constitutes a form of bodily governance and a mechanism for producing (il)legitimate maternities and parentalities, embedded in a complex process of social stratification shaped by intersecting axes of differentiation such as class, race, age, and territory. The model of motherhood that remains socially esteemed is one that adheres to normative ideals, particularly those aligned with the conjugal, cisheteronormative family structure (Mattar; Diniz, 2012). Thus, we examine the strain between child protection and the governance of motherhood by analyzing how government technologies related to the relinquishment of infants for adoption operate, using as an empirical foundation the instructional materials produced regarding child relinquishment for adoption in Brazil. Our focus is to critically reflect on the underlying grammar embedded in the VR process and the (re)production of moralities, often rooted in arguments that generate moral panics (Cohen, 1972), which distort and undermine the parental legitimacy of specific women backgrounds.

This article is situated within a broader body of reflections and debates on reproductive governance (Morgan; Roberts, 2012), a critical analytical perspective for discussing policies related to the control and management of reproductive potentiality (Fonseca; Marre; Rifiotis, 2021). Within this framework, the dispositif of VR functions as a form of bodily management and reproductive stratification, operating through a legislative, juridical, and health apparatus that promotes the donation of infants as an act of love, care, and responsibility by those with the capacity to gestate.

Methodological path

The research focuses on actions carried out within the spheres of the Judicial System and Public Health, where representations of legitimate parenthood and ideal motherhood are dynamically (re)constructed (Robles, 2015; Vergès, 2020). This is a qualitative, document-based study, drawing on an ethnographic approach to documents (Ferreira; Lowenkron, 2020; Vianna, 2014). This perspective attends to the meanings and the potential shifts in meaning mobilized by documentary materials, understood not as ‘static’ records but as artifacts capable of generating transformations and mediating interactions within a given collective. Rather than passive objects, they are seen as shaping social relations and articulating subjectivities (Ferreira; Lowenkron, 2020).

The corpus consists of regulations, laws, resolutions, programs, and projects on VR. The data were collected from official Judiciary websites, all publicly accessible online. Included in the analysis are the three national laws that regulate the VR procedure in Brazil (Acts 12,010/2009, 13,257/2016, and 13,509/2017) (Brasil, 2009, 2016, 2017), a public hearing held by the NCJ in 2022 (also available online) (Audiência […], 2022), and Resolution No. 485/2023 (Brasil, 2023b), which preceded the Manual on Voluntary Relinquishment (Brasil, 2023a). This manual is also part of the empirical corpus analyzed in this article.

A second set of documents pertains to legal guidelines and instructional materials directed toward the Public Health sector. We focus on initiatives implemented in the state of São Paulo, particularly those stemming from Law No. 16,729/2018 (São Paulo, 2018), which mandates the display of informational signage in healthcare facilities to provide guidance on VR. Furthermore, we analyze six VR-related programs currently being developed by regional branches of the Judiciary: ‘Relinquishing is also loving’ (Judiciário […], 2023) by the Maranhão State Court; ‘Delivering Hope’ (Entregando […], 2023) by the Bahia State Court; ‘Stork Project: Informed Mother, Efficient Relinquishment’ (Defensoria Pública do Estado do Ceará, 2022) by the Ceará Public Defender’s Office; ‘Legal Relinquishment is Love, Illegal Relinquishment is a Crime’ (1ª VIJ-DF […], 2023; Entrega […], 2023) by the Federal District and Territories Court; ‘Legal Relinquishment for Adoption’ (Goiás, 2020; TJGO […], 2020) by the Goiás State Court; and ‘Giving Birth’ by the Mato Grosso do Sul State Court (Mato Grosso do Sul, 2021).

Included within this framework are public statements made by legal professionals, politicians, judges, and program architects, as expressed in interviews with official outlets and news media. These statements reflect the perspectives and rationales of their authors, offering insight into the normative frameworks and ideological assumptions that inform their positions. As such, they provide access to deeper layers of meaning and complexity within the broader debate. The excerpts from public figures’ statements were transcribed verbatim from audiovisual materials available on the official websites of state courts of justice. To ensure the authenticity of these statements and mitigate potential ideological bias, all quotations were preserved in their original form and presented within quotation marks.

The documents that comprise the corpus hold varying legal statuses; they range from bills, acts, and resolutions to informational booklets, signage, and audiovisual materials, and originate from State institutions. Their authors occupy diverse institutional roles, including judges, city council members, and public defenders. While this diversity presents certain methodological challenges, it is also crucial for capturing a process that is being actively shaped by a plurality of actors and institutions. This documentary set enables a critical reflection on the legal and legislative production surrounding VR in Brazil, and on how recent initiatives led by the Judiciary, in partnership with the Public Health sector, have contributed to the construction of moralities through norms and practices. These, in turn, shape the everyday practices of professionals and influence women’s experiences and decision-making processes regarding motherhood.

The normative framework that structures the VR procedure

In Brazil, childhood has historically been approached through a tutelary logic centered on the figure of the ‘minor in an irregular situation,’ outlining a repressive, selective, and paternalistic approach largely directed at poor children (Rizzini; Rizzini, 2004). The enactment of the SCA in 1990 marked a rupture with this model by incorporating the doctrine of comprehensive protection and aligning Brazilian policy with the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. With the introduction of the SCA, children and adolescents began to be recognized as rights-bearing subjects. However, the proposal to universalize children’s rights, as envisioned by the statute, encounters significant challenges due to selective institutional practices that persist in operating based on implicit distinctions between children deemed ‘more’ or ‘less human’ (Fonseca; Cardarello, 1999).

In 2016, the establishment of the ‘Legal Framework for Early Childhood’, through Law No. 13,257/2016, welcomed a series of measures aimed at promoting child development during early childhood (Brasil, 2016). This legislation includes VR among the rights and protections guaranteed to children between birth and six years of age. It underscores the intersection between the Health and Justice systems by instituting rights related to pregnancy, such as the right to a companion during childbirth, and provisions allowing mothers of young children to serve judicial sentences under house arrest. The law explicitly states that women who choose to relinquish a child for adoption must not be subjected to coercion or mistreatment by professionals during their referral to the justice system. It further guarantees legal safeguards, including the right to confidentiality and access to integrated support through public policy networks.

To standardize procedures related to VR, the Manual on Voluntary Relinquishment was published (Brasil, 2023a). Released in 2023 during the First Congress of the National Forum on Childhood and Youth, held at the São Paulo School of Magistrates, the manual’s primary objective is to implement and operationalize Resolution No. 485/2023, which regulates VR procedures across all judicial districts in Brazil (Brasil, 2023b). Set out to equip the Justice System and associated support networks for the ‘proper application’ of VR, the manual offers detailed guidelines for the professionals involved in the process, including the establishment of referral protocols and the promotion of intersectoral coordination. Additionally, the manual calls for the development of a range of supplementary materials, such as informational booklets and public awareness campaigns, designed both to inform the public about VR and to train professionals within the Rights Guarantee System (Brasil, 2023a).

An important precursor to the manual was a public hearing held in June 2022 by the NCJ to discuss the relinquishment of children for adoption within the scope of the country’s courts of justice (Audiência […], 2022). The urgency and relevance of regulating VR at that time were covered by claims of a significant increase in national demand for VR, the need to curb irregular adoptions, and the necessity of addressing cases of infant abandonment. Notably, the Judiciary’s concern with the issue was underscored by the argument that “at least eight times a day, across the country, children, especially infants, are left on the streets, in trash cans, and in public restrooms under highly unsanitary conditions” (Audiência […], 2022).

Repeatedly seen as an act of ‘love,’ ‘benevolence,’ and ‘moral duty,’ the relinquishment of children for adoption was presented during the hearing as a step forward in guaranteeing rights to pregnant women and mothers who choose not to remain with their child under conditions of vulnerability. Within this framing, relinquishment was constructed as the appropriate ‘solution’ to the social ‘problem’ it purports to address. Only in a brief intervention during the event was it acknowledged that the act might be connected to the impoverishment of families and the broader socioeconomic crisis exacerbated by the Covid-19 public health emergency. This comment drew a connection between the relinquishment of infants and the lack of access to public policies aimed at strengthening the protective function of families, as established in the 1988 Brazilian Federal Constitution (Brasil, 1988) and the SCA (Brasil, 1990).

Since 2016, there has been “growing pressure from legislative proposals aimed at expediting the termination of parental rights among working-class families and reducing the waiting time for individuals registered for adoption” (Matias; Souza; Oliveira, 2020, p. 37). Through the dissemination of discourses and practices within the field of child protection, these narratives actively contribute to the marginalization of specific social groups. In doing so, they help shape dominant cultural perspectives and influence the formulation and implementation of public policies related to the governance of reproduction (Fonseca; Marre; Rifiotis, 2021; Rinaldi, 2020). By way of example, data from the Diagnostic Report on the National Adoption System (Brasil, 2020) reveal that the termination of parental rights reaches significant levels in Brazil and is distributed unevenly across social groups, namely along racial lines. The report indicates that between 2009 and 2020, approximately 222,330 children were removed from their families of origin, placed in institutional care, or referred for adoption. Of this total, 64.3% were Black children.

We understand that child-oriented policies promote a moral discourse on what is considered appropriate or inappropriate for children, based on standardized and normative models of the family. Concepts such as ‘risk’ and ‘vulnerability’ are frequently mobilized to construct subjects who are viewed in individualized terms, disconnected from their broader social and structural realities (Robles, 2015). This discursive framework has been instrumental in legitimizing the compulsory removal of infants by the State (Souza et al., 2018). Social stigmas surrounding motherhood, anchored in cultural representations of the ‘ideal’ family, and the societal pressures to conform to these norms contribute to the construction of certain women as unfit for motherhood (Mattar; Diniz, 2012). This dynamic often results in the denial or delegitimization of their maternal identity, particularly in the case of poor and Black women (Brandão; Cabral, 2021; Pinto, 2021; Robles, 2015).

From trash to hope: Regional initiatives and campaigns on VR

Analyzing the Judiciary’s campaigns in support of VR, we observe how this framework gains concrete expression at the regional level, in collaboration with other sectors such as Social Assistance and Health. Since the passing of Law No. 13,509/2017 (Brasil, 2017), the practice of relinquishing babies for adoption has been more widely discussed, especially within the Judiciary, which has actively produced documents (manuals, booklets, campaigns, posters, and resolutions) to regulate and promote the topic.

At the municipal level, legislative representatives have been enacting laws to guide VR initiatives. For instance, Article 1 of Law No. 8,042/2022, passed in Guarulhos (2022) - São Paulo, mandates a permanent campaign in health settings, educational institutions, public offices, and official communication channels, informing pregnant women and mothers of their right to relinquish their child or newborn for adoption. Councilman Wellinton Bezerra, president of the Commission on Children and Adolescents’ Rights and a member of the Christian Labor Party, explained that the initiative seeks to raise awareness in order to “prevent women who have just given birth from harming their babies […] Women can leave the child at the hospital, and the Justice system will manage the entire process” (Dieguez; Silva; Cabral, 2024, p. 9). He followed that the purpose of the campaign is “to address a significant public health issue arising from the serious complications experienced by women who resort to induced abortion” (Guarulhos, 2022).

The promotion of this legal prerogative is already reflected in the rising rates of VR (TJSP […], 2024). Judge Iberê de Castro Dias, a member of the Child and Youth Coordination Office of the SP/CJ and presiding judge of the 2nd Juvenile Court of Guarulhos, celebrated the increase in VR cases, from 175 in 2019 to 352 in 2023. In his words, this growth is due to “the streamlining provided by the VR provision, through which the child’s legal status is already defined for prospective adoptive parents” (TJSP […], 2024).

VR initiatives promote a pedagogical framework that constructs certain maternities as ‘unfit’ while upholding idealized models of parenthood. Narratives of infant abandonment, especially those invoking sensationalized imagery of mothers ‘leaving babies in dumpsters’, are frequently mobilized to legitimize adoption as both a form of child ‘rescue’ and a preferable alternative to abortion, whether legal or clandestine. Women who choose to relinquish their children are portrayed as responsible, morally aware, and altruistic, precisely because they are perceived as offering the child an opportunity to be raised in another family. A practice historically marked by social stigma and associated with abandonment is thus rearticulated and romanticized as an act of love and a ‘conscious’ decision, one framed within the mother’s socioeconomic conditions and the so-called ‘best interests of the child’ (Mueller, 2023; Sheriff, 2000).

Such narrative and representational construction becomes even more pronounced when examining the categories used to frame the decision to relinquish a child as a moral duty, decidedly when applied to women who are pregnant under conditions of social vulnerability. For instance, the Policy for Supporting Pregnant Women: Toward a Mature Decision on Whether or Not to Keep the Child, created by the SP/CJ in 2015, asserts that “relinquishing a child for adoption is an act of love and care” (São Paulo, 2015, p. 33). In this document, the profile of women who turn to the Justice System is associated with “mothers of crack, poverty, and hunger” (São Paulo, 2015, p. 8), noting that “increasingly often, we hear of babies left in the streets, found in trash bins, on curbs, in vacant lots, or of women who fled the hospital, leaving the child behind” (São Paulo, 2015, p. 5).

A similar stance is expressed by Judge Maria Socorro Afonso Silva, a representative of the Court of Justice of the state of Goiás (GO/CJ). During the launch of the ‘Legal Relinquishment Program,’ she worded that, according to reports from the GO/CJ’s multidisciplinary team, those who turn to the legal mechanism are primarily “mothers involved with drugs, experiencing homelessness, or victims of sexual violence.” However, in introducing the program, she also highlighted data from the Ministry of Health regarding complications from unsafe abortions, as well as reports related to human trafficking. Ultimately, the judge advocates for ‘safe’ relinquishment as a means of preventing such outcomes, emphasizing that it constitutes the most appropriate path for protecting newborns in situations marked by maternal insecurity and vulnerability (TJGO […], 2020).

References to the urgency of disseminating and raising awareness about VR are a recurring theme across regional initiatives. Targeting both the Judiciary and other sectors, these actions aim to engage a broad range of public service providers and professionals. The pedagogical effort also extends to the public, particularly through the distribution of informational booklets and the dissemination of content online (including videos and livestreams). This investment appears to reflect a strategic attempt to legitimize and widely circulate the reproductive governance narratives mobilized by this dispositif.

The initiatives led by the Judiciary require the cooperation and compliance of other sectors, yet they are frequently performed without directly involving these sectors in the drafting of regulations and campaigns. Consequently, such legal instruments often bypass participatory mechanisms, disregarding a guideline of Brazil’s Unified Health System, that of social participation in policy deliberation. By centralizing decision-making on VR within the judicial sphere, these initiatives marginalize social movements, public administrators, service users, and professionals in the health and social assistance realms, despite relying on them for the implementation of the resulting measures.

Exemplary instances of this intersectoral coordination can be found in the Federal District (Distrito Federal, 2017) and in São Paulo (Lei estabelece […], 2018). In June 2023, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Federal District and Territories (PPOFDT), hand in hand with the Department of Health, developed two informational booklets on VR, one of which is for civil servants (Ministério Público do Distrito Federal e Territórios, 2023). In this material, VR is presented as a ‘legal act’ that, in many cases, reflects an expression of care and protection for the child. Both the Federal District and the state of São Paulo have passed laws requiring public and private healthcare settings, such as hospitals and maternity wards, to display signage in clearly visible locations with the following message: “The relinquishment of a child for adoption, even during pregnancy, is not a crime. If you wish to do so, or know someone in this situation, contact the Juvenile Court. The procedure is legal and confidential” (cf. Figure 1). State Representative Rita Passos, from the Social Democratic Party and author of the São Paulo law, explained that the initiative was prompted by reports indicating that many newborns are left by their mothers in maternity wards, while others ‘are thrown in the trash after birth’ (Aguiar, 2018).

Following the lawmaker, “the goal is to raise awareness among pregnant women that adoption is a legal act, whereas abortion, the sale of children, or the abandonment of children, often in trash bins, are crimes.” For Judge Iberê de Castro, the law is specifically directed at pregnant women from lower-income backgrounds:

The primary beneficiaries of this legislation are expectant mothers from the lower classes, a demographic that is woefully under-informed. The notion of relinquishing familial authority, a concept that encompasses adoption, is often perceived as a transgression. This is primarily because the act itself remains a social taboo. Nevertheless, it should be recognized that this act is invariably motivated by love, albeit a love that is accompanied by pain (Aguiar, 2018).

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Figure 1
Sign “Law on the adoption of unborn children” found in healthcare services in the state of São Paulo.

This promotional poster from the ‘Delivering Hope Program’ (Entregando […], 2023) was displayed in public healthcare facilities across the state of Bahia, aiming to inform pregnant and postpartum women about their right to VR. The image portrays a Black woman as the sole adult figure in the scene, holding a newborn child. The absence of other adults visually reinforces the notion of individual responsibility in reproductive decision-making. The visual narrative suggests that, upon recognizing her presumed inability to provide ‘adequate conditions’ for the child’s development, the woman makes a loving and altruistic choice to relinquish the baby for adoption. The act is framed as a morally virtuous gesture, one of renunciation imbued with hope, constructing motherhood as an ideal even in its abdication. The racial and class coding of the sign reinforces longstanding stereotypes around selective legitimization of parenthood as mediated by the State.

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Figure 2
‘Delivering Hope Program’.

The appeal to maternal love (Badinter, 1985) is a recurrent theme in various judicial campaigns and educational materials. On one hand, maternal sentiment is reinforced through emotionally charged language that envisions the act of relinquishing a child as an expression of love. On the other hand, such discourses help construct an idealized model of parenthood, one that paradoxically requires the severing of biological ties. The Court of Justice of the Federal District produced a video featuring a baby named Vitória, who was relinquished by her mother. The narrator echoes: “Through an act of love, this woman gave up motherhood to offer her child the opportunity to grow up in a home that can provide safety and affection” (Entrega […], 2023). The Court of Justice of the state of Maranhão launched a campaign titled ‘Relinquishing is also loving’, which likewise appeals to emotional narratives (Figure 3 - Judiciário […], 2023). Presumably, the aim of these campaigns is to ensure children’s rights to life and health, while promoting a ‘humanized’ approach to women who express the desire to place their children for adoption.

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Figure 3
‘Relinquishing is also loving’ campaign.

The Public Defender’s Office of the state of Ceará (CE/PDO) launched the ‘Stork Project - An Informed Mother, an Efficient Adoption,’ justifying it with the claim that “many mothers ended up giving their children away clandestinely and illegally, or, in some cases, even abandoning them” (Defensoria Pública do Estado do Ceará, 2022). Drawing on the stork myth, in which the bird is responsible for delivering babies to families, it becomes clear that the Judiciary seeks to assume this very role. The ‘informed mother,’ aware of her own inadequacies, entrusts the baby to the ‘stork-Justice,’ which will deliver the child to a family deemed more suitable. The educational materials frame adoption and motherhood in a highly romanticized manner, exemplified by a poem included in the campaign that reinforces the noble and morally elevated nature of relinquishment, as illustrated below:

To give birth is to give oneself, to walk side by side,

It’s the mission of caring, of loving and being loved

It’s being grateful for having been cared for one day too

It’s knowing the greatest love you can love

It’s the school of life that insists on teaching

That to give birth to a child you don’t need to beget it

It’s understanding that in this case blood is indifferent

[…]

Those who give birth don’t always take care, but those who love will take care

They will care regardless of the color of the skin

Genetics, blood

Love goes further Love shines so brightly

That whoever adopts a child

Is also adopted!

(Defensoria Pública do Estado do Ceará, 2022, p. 10).

Thereof, parenthood is portrayed in an idealized and fantastical manner, while adoption is seen as an isolated act, detached from its broader social and historical contexts. There is minimal critical engagement with the question of who truly benefits from VR, the potential harms it may inflict on those directly affected, or the emotional and social burdens placed on the women and children involved. The poem functions similarly to institutional campaigns promoting VR: it softens, moralizes, and aestheticizes a process fundamentally molded by structural inequalities and decisions made under conditions of material precarity. By reimagining relinquishment and adoption as altruistic expressions of love, such campaigns contribute to the construction of a legitimizing narrative that facilitates the removal of children from vulnerable families, while absolving the State of its responsibility to implement policies that support and protect motherhood. Both the poem and associated campaign arrangements tend to idealize adoptive parents, positioning them as morally noble figures. Little room is afforded for grief, regret, or the act of listening. Instead, the narrative centers the child and their new home as sites of redemption.

The public outrage stirred by images and reports of infants abandoned in trash bins often overshadows the social concern that should instead be directed toward pregnant women in need of comprehensive support. Case in point, there is no formal program to assist postpartum women who have relinquished their newborns for adoption. The sole provision is a ten-day period during which the mother may revoke her decision. This brief window fails to consider the psychological and emotional impacts of the postpartum period, which can include a “state of emotional disturbance” characterized by “heightened psychological vulnerability” (Brasil, 2006, p. 35). This means that the emotional and psychological challenges that may impede a woman’s ability to reassess her decision within such a limited timeframe are largely overlooked in favor of swiftly placing the child with an adoptive family. While Brazilian law recognizes adoption as a right of the child, there remains a significant gap in the development and implementation of public policies aimed at supporting the women who pursue this path.

The right to confidentiality surrounding the child’s birth ensures that a woman is not required to disclose the identity of the father, as outlined in the Manual on Voluntary Relinquishment (Brasil, 2023a). Nevertheless, the document admits the vulnerability women often face in the context of paternal absence, recommending that, during service provision, professionals assess whether the pregnant woman needs or wishes to receive support in establishing contact or mediating potential conflicts with the father. In such cases, a woman’s socioeconomic status may considerably hinder her ability to access the Judicial System to seek legal recognition of paternity and to claim the child support to which she is entitled from the beginning of the pregnancy (Santos, 2023).

Between 2017 and 2018, according to judicial authorities, the primary reason for the relinquishment of newborns was substance use, cited at the time as accounting for approximately 90% of cases in the central region of São Paulo (Souza, 2022). Judge Cristina Ribeiro Leite, presiding over the Juvenile Court in that region, remarked: “It is common for mothers to have had 7 or 10 pregnancies, and many cannot say where their children are or even recall their names” (Leite apudVelleda, 2017). She detailed how the health and judicial systems manage such pregnancies, sharing that “in some cases, when the hospital determines that the mother’s situation is ‘very dire,’ it may choose not to discharge the newborn.” Although she emphasized that the decision ultimately belongs to the mother, this principle is conditional upon the Judiciary’s assessment of the woman’s profile. “If [the mother] changes her mind, under no circumstances will the judiciary oppose that decision, unless there is a risk to the child, such as in the case of a mother who uses crack or lives on the streets, among other conditions,” she explained. “If the risk stems from the mother’s condition, the child will be placed in institutional care, regardless of the mother’s wishes” (Leite apudVelleda, 2017). The judge’s remarks mirror how judicial practices determine which behaviors, profiles, and circumstances are deemed ‘fit’ for motherhood. This rationale is commonly reflected in adoption policies that tend to favor middle- and upper-class families, while economically disadvantaged families increasingly face the loss of their parental rights, often based on the assumption that they are less capable of adequately caring for their children (Villalta, 2019).

The ‘Giving Birth Program’ (Mato Grosso do Sul, 2021) features a Black child in its promotional poster for VR. Various campaigns similarly depict Black women and children in their outreach materials, which underscores the racialized dimension of the encouragement to relinquish infants for adoption in Brazil. The use of these representations, as in the campaign from the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, proves how race intersects with narratives around motherhood, vulnerability, and State intervention in reproductive lives.

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Figure 4
Sign found in healthcare services in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

Unfortunately, the institutionalization of Black infants tends to elicit far less public empathy or outrage compared to that of white infants (Guedes, 2013). In a study conducted in a residential care institution, Guedes (2013) observed that majority of the institutionalized babies were Black or brown, with only one exception, a white infant. Strikingly, volunteers, healthcare professionals, and visitors displayed markedly greater compassion toward the white child. Many voiced disbelief that a mother could relinquish such a baby and often expressed an immediate desire to adopt the child or recommended someone who might be interested in doing so (Guedes, 2013).

Therefore, the invocation of the risk of violence perpetrated by mothers against their children serves as one of the key justifications for promoting VR. The SP/CJ’s booklet, Policy of Support for Pregnant Women: Professional Assistance for a Well-Informed Decision on Whether to Keep the Child, cautions that “children who remain with their mothers and are abused, exploited, and sometimes killed provide a clear indication of how inadequately made decisions by women impact their children’s futures” (São Paulo, 2015, p. 27). Judge Eduardo Rezende Melo, who authored the booklet, settled that its development was prompted by “a series of cases reported by the press involving the abandonment of newborns under the most harrowing conditions.” Similarly, the Court of Justice of the state of Goiás (Goiás, 2020) applies comparable arguments in its contents.

The campaign ‘Legal relinquishment is an act of love; illegal relinquishment is a crime,’ produced by the 1st Childhood and Youth Court of the Federal District, employs an institutional video presenting various images, including fetuses described as aborted and newborns who died, allegedly due to abandonment in unsanitary conditions (1ª VIJ-DF […], 2023). The declared objective of this material is “to inform the general population about the institution of voluntary relinquishment for adoption, thereby aiding the dissemination of this legal option,” and to “raise awareness among women about their right to relinquish a child for adoption, preventing abandonment, sale, infanticide, and practices that endanger both mother and child” (1ª VIJ-DF […], 2023). The appeal to narratives depicting violence perpetrated by women, coupled with the recurrent imagery of infants abandoned in trash and references to infanticide across the various initiatives analyzed, appears to serve an alarmist function. It frames women, when lacking legal oversight, as posing an imminent and fatal threat to infants. On one hand, these narratives mobilize the imperative to protect children’s wholesomeness from presumed maternal cruelty; on the other, they establish the Judiciary as the legitimate and authoritative arbiter of these familial bonds.

Shared parental responsibility is notably absent from the campaigns, despite being stipulated in Section V of Law No. 13,509/2017 (Brasil, 2017, art. 19-A, § 5º), which puts about that “after the child’s birth, the intention of the mother or both parents, if a registered or acknowledged father exists, must be expressed during the hearing”. Current legislation upholds equal parental authority between mother and father, recognizing both as equally vested parties in the legal process. Nevertheless, the role of men in VR processes receives minimal attention; on one hand, judicial documents largely omit discussion of male involvement and responsibility in decisions regarding the relinquishment of infants for adoption. On the other, the absence of the male parent’s presence implicitly reflects the marginalization of men within the reproductive sphere. Both official documentation and the discourse of public officials and legal practitioners focus predominantly on the woman and mother, without actively engaging fathers as participants (Leão et al., 2014; Santos, 2023).

Based on the empirical evidence presented, we observe the deployment of the grammars of rights, gender, and race in the management, control, and hierarchical structuring of motherhoods. Issues central to social movements, such as birth companionship, nonjudgmental care, and the refusal of motherhood, are woven into narratives that shape behaviors and social types, linking perceptions of women’s (Brandão, 2020), particularly poor women’s, presumed dangerousness with concerns over child survival. The invoked urgency to act in the child’s best developmental interests reflects an attempt to connect private and domestic spheres with the State’s regulatory apparatus, granted that destinies, emotions, relationships, and liabilities are delineated within the juridical-legal grammar that governs parenthood.

Women, children, and the politics of legal hierarchization

The initiatives under revision suggest a particular construction of legality and legitimacy in the exercise of parenthood. In response to evolving social demands surrounding this phenomenon, the new Brazilian legal framework reveals a reconfiguration in its normative approach, aspiring to institutionalize VR as a positive legal entitlement. While these measures are enclosed as efforts to humanize legal procedures and increase public awareness of the practice, they also seem to embody what Fassin (2010) terms a ‘humanitarian reason,’ a moral logic wherein emotionally charged discourse is mobilized to legitimize certain acts of child relinquishment as necessary. This discursive strategy signals the emergence of a state policy rooted in compassion (Fassin, 2010, p. 118).

In the early 2000s, programs and services were introduced to strengthen familial bonds; among these were the Family Support Center Program (2001) and the National Plan for Integrated Family Assistance (2003). These initiatives laid the groundwork for the subsequent implementation of the Comprehensive Family Assistance Program (2004), which designated the Social Assistance Reference Centers as the principal institutions overseeing social work with families (Brasil, 2012). Despite the existence of these public policies and services aimed at fostering family cohesion, Fonseca (2012) warns of a gradual erosion of the social justice paradigm established by the SCA. This shift, she argues, is closely linked to the growing dominance of a normative nuclear family model. Fonseca underscores that the statute, installed in the context of Brazil’s redemocratization and influenced by social movements that contested the punitive framework of the former Juvenile Code (Paiva, 2004; Souza, 2022), has increasingly been displaced by new ‘technologies’ of child protection (Fonseca, 2012).

Research conducted with women who experienced the process of relinquishing their child for adoption under Law 12.010/2009 (Brasil, 2009) revealed that many questioned “the swiftness of the relinquishment procedure, which denies pregnant and postpartum women the time necessary to reflect and make an informed decision” (Santos, 2023, p. 119). One participant who relinquished her baby for adoption asked, “Why did they [the justice system] encourage the relinquishment so much? Why don’t they encourage treatment or recovery instead?” (Santos, 2023, p. 119). She recalled having to “fight for time with the baby during childbirth, to breastfeed and admire his beauty before formalizing the adoption” (Santos, 2023, p. 119). Another participant reported not receiving adequate support during her pregnancy and postpartum period, an absence she identified as a determining factor in her decision to relinquish the child. She questioned the lack of social and State assistance throughout her pregnancy:

If there was social assistance to help, I don’t know if it’s a social worker, or if it’s the government. To be honest, I’m not sure. If there was a welcoming place there: “Oh, you stay here, we’ll sort out some food for you.” We’ll help you with the baby stuff. There’s a place here where they look after you and your child. When you’re better, after forty days, you’ll go back to work, you’ll take some meds, you’ll have some tea. That’s all the support I need. You don’t have to, if you don’t want to [relinquish]. You don’t have to give up your child (Santos, 2023, p. 123).

One of the core tenets of the reproductive justice framework is the understanding that “an individual’s ability to determine their reproductive destiny is directly tied to the conditions of their family and community, which are not merely matters of individual choice and access” (Lopes, 2022, p. 225). The findings of Santos (2023) support this assertion and expose the perversity of placing sole responsibility on women for the survival and well-being of children. A comparison of the actions proposed by the legislative and judicial branches reveals that their primary objective is to ensure that children receive the necessary support for swift adoption processes. Contrariwise, the desires and needs of the women, both during and after the relinquishment of their babies, are not granted the same level of institutional attention. While official documents claim to embrace women’s rights and adopt language that gestures toward reproductive rights (such as freedom from coercion, non-imposition of motherhood, and respect for women’s wills), these discourses ultimately reflect a selective appropriation of feminist struggles. What emerges is a translation and displacement of feminist terms and agendas, which are co-opted in ways that often dilute or redirect their original political meaning.

Thence, the enthrallment on supporting women during the period preceding the child’s relinquishment reinforces the notion that such actions are primarily directed toward safeguarding children’s rights. Apart from assistance offered during the legally established revocation period, there are no provisions for continued support or follow-up with the woman after the child has been relinquished. Medeiros and Lemos (2011) highlight that postnatal support for the woman is essential, regardless of whether the child is ultimately placed for adoption. Nevertheless, the Manual on Voluntary Relinquishment (Brasil, 2023a) limits support services to situations in which the woman revokes or withdraws her consent for adoption, and even then, only within a 180-day period. Thus, the woman retains relevance insofar as she maintains decision-making authority over the child’s future. Once legal custody is transferred to the State, her role becomes peripheral. She is no longer pictured through symbolic narratives of ‘love,’ ‘hope,’ or ‘acts of care,’ which are no longer invoked on her behalf.

Ironically, the expansion of VR through public campaigns, the mobilization of State actors, and informational signage in maternity wards and healthcare services has increasingly constituted an additional barrier to accessing legal abortion (Dieguez; Silva; Cabral, 2024; O’Donoghue; Talmor; Adkins, 2025). The framing of adoption as a viable alternative to abortion is made explicit in legislative proposals in Brazil that prioritize carrying pregnancies to term, followed by the relinquishment of the newborn for adoption, in particular women who have been victims of rape. The discursive construction of VR often entails a hierarchical arrangement of rights that positions women and fetuses in direct opposition to one another (Rybka; Cabral, 2023).

The State’s rule of reproduction, premised on the notion that newborns may be better cared for by other mothers, makes evident how “public policies themselves participate in shaping family affects” (Fonseca, 2024, p. 119). Fonseca (2024) identifies the alienation of affect as one of the key consequences of State intervention in family life, commonly among the most vulnerable populations. She emphasizes that “conceptions of family may be used to justify policies grounded both in administrative procedures and in the promotion of child welfare” (Fonseca, 2024, p. 122).

With that, the moral discourse phrasing motherhood, along with the formulation of policies aimed at ‘combating the abandonment of infants by women,’ appears disproportionate when considered alongside the substantial number of children raised without paternal involvement. Research shows that approximately 11 million women in Brazil raise their children alone (Feijó, 2023), mostly Black women. The same study indicates that ‘solo mothers’ typically have smaller support networks and confront greater hardships both in securing and retaining employment (Brasil […], 2023), underscoring that the conditions enabling motherhood are collectively produced and maintained (Lopes, 2022; Rinaldi et al., 2024). Villalta (2019) posits that, in Brazil, values rooted in rights-based frameworks are increasingly being relativized and contested under the banner of child welfare and the so-called ‘best interest of the child.’ Consequently, a range of policy measures spotlighting mothers have functioned to assign blame or disqualify biological families, reflecting a broader international trend observed across Southern Cone countries during the twentieth century, wherein future-oriented concerns gave rise to the framing of child protection as public health issue.

There is a persistent tension between the rights of women and those of children across various political arenas. Debates over VR and abortion have emerge as contemporary sites of contestation, embedded within the broader social fabric of struggles over the recognition and inscription of rights within, and through, the apparatus of the State (Rosa, 2023). These disputes are part of what Fassin (2014) coins as the production of a moral economy: a process by which values are ascribed, and citizenship is hierarchized, resulting in differentiated treatment, both among categories of women and between women and children.

Final remarks

Concern for child protection expanded significantly over the course of the twentieth century, legitimizing the development of laws and institutions dedicated to the defense of children’s rights. However, this concern has frequently been mobilized to justify the removal of parental authority, notably that of mothers, based on an ‘individualist and individualizing’ evaluation of the capacities of biological parents (Villalta, 2019). Such a moralizing standpoint places the burden of life circumstances squarely on the individual, reinforcing meritocratic narratives. It is also dogmatic, as it deduces structural and social issues as personal failures. The empirical evidence demonstrates how these notions have been systematically employed to construct the figure of the woman who may be deemed eligible for or subtly pressured into VR.

The rise of VR in Brazil has exposed the entanglement of moral frameworks operating across child protection and gender policy, which shape the practices directed at pregnant individuals who choose to relinquish their babies for adoption. These practices often work by guiding woman toward an internalized perception of their own ‘incapacity,’ pushing them to forgo parental rights in favor of what is discursively constructed as a better future for the child.

The image of the ‘newborn abandoned in trash bins’ has become a recurring rhetorical device in the advancement of VR in Brazil. Oftentimes accompanied by emotionally charged visuals, this narrative is designed to provoke social outrage toward mothers who abandon, harm, or kill their infants. In doing so, it reinforces the perception that certain women (mothers) are inherently incapable of affection or empathy for their children. Within this framework, relinquishing a child for adoption performs a dual function: it supports the continuity of the adoption system while simultaneously serving as a mechanism for regulating reproductive bodies. Tracing these dynamics within the normative structure of VR reveals a landscape shaped by what Vianna (2014, p. 49) refers to as multiple games of production, displacement, or removal of authority: a process that reconfigures relational boundaries and responsibilities. Notwithstanding this multiplicity, one element remains constant: the systematic positioning of the Justice System as the primary arbiter and legitimizing force in determining who is permitted to constitute a family.

In our discussion, we have highlighted that these legal actions and initiatives are embedded within a broader context shaped by a specific mode of reproductive governance, one that systematically subordinates the reproductive rights of girls and women in Brazil. We underscore the Judiciary’s active role in positioning itself as the central authority in determining the life trajectories of newborn children, thereby reinforcing a normative framework in which legal institutions mediate and regulate familial configurations and reproductive agency.

The prevailing understanding that adoption constitutes an act of care and responsibility by pregnant individuals who personally recognize, accept, and assume their inability to parent is a recurring theme. This pedagogical framing recasts the decision to mother within a neoliberal logic of individualism, detaching it from the broader social, historical, and political structures that shape reproductive possibilities. In the absence of comprehensive strategies for sexual education, reproductive planning, or support for birth families, the legal and legislative apparatus reinforces the naturalization of social inequalities that define the material conditions under which individuals may, or may not, choose to have children. As such, these measures stand in marked contrast to the foundational principles of reproductive justice and social justice (Brandão; Cabral, 2021; Ross, 2017).

Therefore, the construction of a particular social imaginary around ideal motherhood, coupled with moral panics surrounding child abandonment, is rooted in the myth of unconditional maternal love: an ideal that becomes irreconcilable with the figure of the mother who may commit a transgressive act, whether through the abandonment of an infant or the decision to have an abortion. This discourse establishes a distinction between legitimate forms of motherhood and so-called ‘necessary’ relinquishments, reinforcing reproductive hierarchies and contributing to the delegitimization of the parenthood/motherhood of certain women. Within this framework, the act of relinquishing a baby for adoption is conceived as a corrective measure, that is, a solution to the structural and social vulnerabilities experienced by groups of women.

Ultimately, we argue that these initiatives give rise to moral regimes rooted in representations of so-called dangerous mothers (those who abandon their children) and rely on narratives of abortion and infanticide to justify and intensify the regulation of motherhood. This arrangement contributes to the stigmatization of women and the pathologization of their reproductive trajectories. Reproductive labor is, above all, a social, collective, and relational process. The instruments mobilized by initiatives surrounding VR function as State technologies, operating within a broader Brazilian context marked by ongoing tensions in reproductive governance. As Briggs (2017 apudFonseca; Marre; Rifiotis, 2021, p. 10) aptly reminds us: “All politics are reproductive politics.”

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  • 1
    This study received financial support from the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES - 88887.663682/2022-00), from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq - PQ308568/2022-2), and from the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP - 2023/13347-0). Our research was carried out with the assistance of the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES) - Funding Code 001.

Data availability

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Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    19 Dec 2025
  • Date of issue
    Sep-Dec 2025

History

  • Received
    31 Oct 2024
  • Accepted
    18 Aug 2025
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