Portuguese vote for more liberal abortion laws

Portuguese vote for more liberal abortion laws
By Peter Wise in Lisbon
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
Published: February 12 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 12 2007 02:00


Portuguese voters yesterday approved the liberalisation of the country's abortion laws, among the strictest in Europe, in a referendum that has prompted a national debate on morality, class and Portugal's place in the modern world.

Exit polls last night indicated that between 57 and 61 per cent of voters voted in favour of allowing women to have abortions in authorised health clinics during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

However, only 40-44 per cent of the electorate turned out to vote, below the 50 per cent needed to make the ballot constitutionally binding.

The high abstention rate is an embarrassment for politicians and campaigners in a country that has held two referendums on liberalising abortion in nine years. In 1998 a similar proposal was narrowly defeated. On that occasion only 32 per cent of the electorate turned out.

The governing Socialist party, which tabled the referendum in the hope of reversing the 1998 vote, said it would respect the result.

Turnout has been below 50 per cent in all three referendums Portugal has held since introducing them into its constitution in the 1990s.

Under its existing 1984 abortion law, pregnancies can be terminated only in cases of serious medical risk to the mother, rape or foetal malformation. In Europe, only Ireland, Poland and Malta have similar laws.

The Socialists say the criminalisation of abortion penalises poor women more than others and stigmatises Portugal as a backward-looking country out of step with modern Europe.

Opponents, led by the Roman Catholic Church, say changing the law would encourage more women to have abortions without tackling the social causes of unwanted pregnancies. Portugal has the second highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe after Britain.

The campaign has highlighted tensions between the two sections of society. One of the main issues at stake is the threat to women's health caused by the high number of clandestine abortions carried out, often in unsanitary conditions. Several thousand women a year are treated in hospital for complications arising from such abortions, about 20,000 a year, according to official figures.

During the campaign, José Sócrates, the prime minister, described clandestine abortions as "a national disgrace" and "a shameful trauma". He said the current law did nothing to reduce unwanted pregnancies.