Brazil's Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao defended in a Supreme Federal Court hearing women's right to abortion in case the fetus is diagnosed as anencephalia, local media reported Thursday.

Temporao said that Brazil's public hospitals are fully capable of diagnosing fetus's anencephalia, and the Brazilian law stipulates that a person without brain activity is considered dead.

"Forbidding a woman to abort a fetus who is doomed to die is cruel, it is a political use of women's bodies," Temporao said during the hearing, "we defend a pregnant woman's right to advance the birth."

Currently, Brazilian law considers abortion a crime, which entails a one-to-four-year imprisonment. If the abortion is made without the woman's consent, it would lead to a prison term of three to ten years.

However, abortion is not punishable if the woman was raped, or the pregnancy poses a grave danger to a woman's health. In both cases, women need an authorization from court to terminate the pregnancy, which yet is often hard to obtain in time.

Brazilian women are allowed to have an abortion in the case of anencephalia, but as authorizations are based on practical circumstances, the process to get approval is often complex.

Brazil's Supreme Federal Court started the hearing on Aug. 26. Medical specialists, pro-life groups and representatives from several religions have attended the hearing by far.

The court will make the final ruling by November.

(Xinhua News Agency September 5, 2008)