Brazil’s bishops welcomed a new resolution of the Federal Medical Council (CFM) determining that doctors must not induce cardiac arrest on an unborn child over 22 weeks gestation.

The abortion method involves an injection of potassium chloride into the unborn child’s heart to stop it, causing the foetus to die. The remains are then removed from the mother’s uterus.

It is used in Ireland in later term abortions, particularly where the unborn child is suffering a from a condition that it likely to mean they will die within 28 days of birth.

The new norm, however, is being challenged by prosecutors and legislators and may not last too long.

On March 21, CFM published the resolution 2378/2024, which states that physicians are “prohibited from carrying out the fetal asystole procedure, a medical act that causes feticide, prior to pregnancy termination procedures in cases of abortion provided for by law, that is, a fetus resulting from rape, when there is a probability of fetal survival at gestational age above 22 weeks”.