RIO DE JANEIRO, May 29, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Brazil's Congress on Tuesday
overrode a veto by left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of a law
that prohibits using public funding for some abortion and gender reassignment
procedures.

The legislation, which was part of a budget provision passed in January, bars
government spending on the promotion or financing of actions "extinguishing
the concept of traditional family."

The law, which now enters into force, blocks the use of taxpayer funds for
abortions "in cases not authorized by law" and gender reassignment surgery
for minors.

The bill also prevents the allocation of public resources to "actions tending
to influence children and adolescents, from kindergarten to high school, to
have sexual options different from the biological sex."

Lula's veto of the bill -- permitted under Brazil's constitution but subject
to a vote by lawmakers -- was overridden in the lower house by 339 votes to
107, and in the senate by 47 votes to 23.

Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of former far-right president Jair
Bolsonaro, celebrated the reinstatement of the law that he had initially
proposed.

"This means several lives saved, less chance of invasions and children less
susceptible to the filth of the left in kindergartens and schools," he wrote
on X.

The veto was overridden with the support of the Bolsonaro loyalists and the
evangelical and rural benches -- the most powerful in Congress.