MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rousseff names controversial pro-abortion minister for Women’s affairs

Menicucci shared a cell with Rousseff, had two abortions and lesbian experiences

Recently inaugurated Minister for Women policies Eleonora Menicucci has raised eyebrows in chauvinistic Brazil after having publicly admitted to two abortions and bi-sexual experiences

“Eleonora is joining the most feminine cabinet in the history of Brazil not only because a woman in president and ten women are ministers, but also because it acknowledges the importance of women and her rights in society”, said President Dilma Rousseff on presenting the new controversial minister.

According to the Brazilian media Menicucci shared the cell with the President in the seventies when they were both members of the urban guerrilla movement fighting the military dictatorship.

“We were jailed, tortured, we shared the same cell. We made a commitment that taught us how to deal with adversities and never run away from situations no matter how difficult”, added Rousseff.

Menicucci also favours abortion a most controversial issue in Brazil, and admits having had two in her youth. The first was in the seventies and it was done because the guerrilla cell she belonged to in those years so decided: you can’t be a mother and a guerrilla fighter at the same time, admitted the incoming minister.

In a 2004 interview unearthed and discovered by the journalist Reinaldo Azevedo in the archives of the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Menicucci reveals her line of thinking at the time.

“My judgment was that I had to carry out the armed struggle… And an important detail in that course (of action) is that, six months after my daughter was born, I was again pregnant” Manicucci tells the interviewer.

“At that point, together with the organization, we decided, the organization, us, that I should have an abortion. In the situation, to have another child, no?...That was the second abortion that I did,” she says.

Menicucci reveals that she was so sexually promiscuous that she was “very much questioned” by the left, and that the revolutionary group of which she was a member, “for security reasons,” wanted her to “only have sexual relations with members of my organization.”

Menicucci also discusses her first lesbian encounter, which occurred while she was married. However, she assures her interviewer, there was no problem because “he was a very libertarian guy.”

Dilma Rousseff has stirred controversy with the appointment and Menicucci unapologetic pro-abortion stance seems to contradict the president’s claim to be pro-life, which she was forced to admit publicly and was significant for her victory in the 2010 presidential elections.