BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS / Šturma, Mozetic (eds)

the physician to the patient and vice versa, or even doctors and health institutions, the doctor-patient relationship must overcome any consideration of self-interest and gain. It is a professional relationship that must be indifferent, lasting, intimate and trustworthy. 51 It is based on this relation of autonomy of the will, that is, in the exercise of the right of freedom and equality, that the norms of protection of pregnant women and parturient against obstetric violence, Law n. 17.097/2017 of Santa Catarina, substantiate the protective legal system the rights of women. In a similar perspective, is the health companies relation to the Act 17,097/2017 of Santa Catarina, that, although has established mechanisms to compel doctors and health units that attend pregnant or parturient women, it has no effect in on the health business industry, and considering the importance that the health plans have for a effective development policies on health education, this could have been an important mechanism to help protect women’s rights. The existence of laws that specifically regulate the situation of obstetric violence is important because it recognizes, a priori, the gender inequality and the differential treatment to which the pregnant woman and the parturient sometimes encounter, impelling protective interventions by the state action as a way to reduce or extinguish the practice of abusive acts committed during the gestational period against women. In this sense, the Santa Catarina law contributes, as an affirmative action of a regional scope (limited to the State of Santa Catarina), to safeguard the rights of pregnant women and parturient in order to protect them from abusive and offensive actions committed by health professionals and/or family members during the gestational period, even though it have not created any form of mandatory obligation to the health plans (insurance companies) 5. Final Remarks It is perceived that obstetric violence is real in the daily life of women and, at the mercy of this, its protection through laws that safeguard the autonomy of the will of pregnant women and parturient is indispensable as a way to guarantee the free and balanced exercise of women’s rights. Despite the lack of specific laws that repress obstetric violence in several countries, including at federal level in Brazil, the State of Santa Catarina, with an innovative feature, edited the Act number 17.097/2017 implementing information and protection measures for pregnant and parturient women. Notwithstanding the good intention of the said legal command, it is a fact that it leads to a palliate effectiveness of protection of these rights, since it foresees the behaviors that considers offensive, but did not assign a civil or criminal specific responsibilities or sanctions to those who commit the acts described in the law as violators of rights of pregnant or parturient women, only made it impossible for health units (hospitals, private clinics, basic health units, and doctors’ offices specialized in women’s health care) to be allowed to function regularly, and they were forced to post a list containing which is considered obstetric violence. 51 O’NEILL, Onora. Autonomy and trust in bioethics . New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 17.

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