On June 10, 2025, at 9:30 a.m., Carolina Aita Flores, a doctoral candidate in Public Health at IMS/UERJ, will present the qualification of her thesis project titled “Let Us Act as Judges with a High Degree of Sensitivity”: A Discourse Analysis of the Federal Medical Council on Women’s Bodies, under the academic supervision of Professor Jane Russo (CLAM/IMS/UERJ). The session will be held in a hybrid format. In-person attendance will take place in Room 6021, 6th floor, Block E, IMS/UERJ.
Thesis Summary:
This work is part of a doctoral research project that investigates the discourse of the Federal Medical Council (CFM) on women’s bodies. It is a qualitative study that analyzes official CFM documents published between 2003 and 2023. Data collection was conducted using the CFM’s regulatory database, employing thirteen keywords related to female reproductive processes.
The theoretical and methodological framework is based on Franco-Brazilian discourse analysis, inspired by Michel Foucault (biopower, biopolitics, medicalization, the order of discourse, and the hysterization of the female body), along with gender studies, philosophy, and feminist critiques of science. The aim is to understand how the CFM addresses the female body in its official documents.
After screening, 89 documents were selected for analysis. For instance, findings on “reproduction” include 2 resolutions, 12 opinions, and 12 administrative orders. In one opinion, the CFM advises doctors to “act as judges with a high degree of sensitivity,” revealing a desire to legislate. In the resolution on assisted reproduction, the CFM mandates that physicians choose egg donors with “the greatest phenotypic similarity to the recipient,” reinforcing a model of reproduction that mimics so-called “natural” standards.
Preliminary findings suggest that the power exercised by the CFM exceeds its official mandates, going beyond the supervision of ethical professional conduct—both when it seeks to legislate and when it attempts to imitate nature through its regulations on the artificial reproduction of bodies.
Location: Room 6021, Block E, 6th floor, IMS/UERJ
Rua Francisco Xavier, No. 524, Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.