PORTUGAL: Legal Abortion After Decades of Struggle

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Feb 12 2007 (IPS) - It took more than three decades of struggle by activists for Portugal to give the green light, via referendum, to parliament to make the country’s strict anti-abortion law more flexible.

In Sunday’s referendum, 59 percent of voters responded “yes” and 41 percent responded “no” to the question “Do you agree with the decriminalisation of abortion if it is performed in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, at the request of the woman, in a legal medical establishment?”

Turnout stood at 44 percent of the country’s 8.7 million voters.

The vote revoked a 1998 referendum in which voters decided against legalising abortion, in the first attempt to modify the 1984 Portuguese law that makes abortion illegal unless the mother’s life is at risk or – in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy – if the foetus is deformed, or in case of rape.

In addition, Portugal is currently the only EU country where women who undergo an abortion face prison sentences, of up to three years, with the added humiliation that the sentences are read out during public, televised trials.

The number of clandestine abortions practiced in Portugal is estimated at 20,000 a year.

Portugal will now abandon the list of EU countries with the strictest abortion laws, made up of Ireland, Malta and Poland.

Socialist Prime Minister José Sócrates said the outcome of the referendum represented “progress for Portugal, which took a step towards joining the most modern, developed and open European societies.”

The parliamentary debate on reforming the abortion law will begin within the next few days and could continue until the end of the current legislature’s term, in July, said Sócrates, because the intention is to achieve a consensus among all of the parties in parliament.

The referendum “was not a defeat for anyone. The only thing we want is to move ahead in order to combat clandestine abortions,” said the prime minister. But he said the new law that is adopted by parliament “will have to respect the results of the referendum.”

On Monday, advocates of the “no” vote argued that the outcome was not legally binding, because the law states that turnout must reach at least 50 percent.

But Sócrates pointed out that citizen participation “was much higher than in 1998” and that the results were much more compelling, because that year turnout stood at just 32 percent, and the “no” vote defeated the “yes” vote by a narrow margin of 50 to 48 percent.

The prime minister attempted to mollify opponents of a more flexible abortion law, noting that the new legislation would not merely be approved by the Socialist Party (PS) lawmakers, who hold a majority of seats, but would be discussed with all of the parties, and would ensure that a woman’s decision to undergo an abortion would be reached “after profound reflection.”

A reformed abortion law has the support so far of the PS, the Communist Party (PCP), the Left Bloc, and several legislators from the Social Democrat Party (PSD), which is conservative despite its name.

The only party that is unanimously opposed is the Social Democratic Centre (CDS), a small nationalist, ultra-Catholic rightwing party.

The president of the PSD, Luís Marques Mendes, said his party would not throw obstacles in the way of the debate, because “although the result is not legally binding, it must be respected with the same criteria used with regard to the 1998 referendum.” But the new law must be “balanced,” he added.

The leader of the PCP, Jerónimo de Sousa, said the result “is a clear expression of tolerance and an important victory for modernity,” while the head of the BI, Francisco Louçã, exclaimed that “Portugal has finally entered the 21st century.”

The only openly hostile stance was taken by CDS president José Ribeiro e Castro, who promised to continue his struggle “for the defence of life, by voting against the law that the government is preparing because it paves the way for indifference towards women at risk.”

He also blamed Sócrates for “this black moment in the history of Portugal.”

Women’s rights activists and citizens movements, meanwhile, are celebrating a triumph that they have been awaiting for 33 years, since Portugal emerged from a 48-year dictatorship by means of the Apr. 25, 1974 coup d’etat waged by leftwing army officers.

“After three decades, the last pending task of Apr. 25 has been completed: full rights for women,” Professor Manuela Tavares, president of the Movement of Citizenship and Responsibility for the “Yes” vote, told IPS.

Over the last 32 years, the activist has become one of the leading voices of the women’s movement. Her struggle for the decriminalisation of abortion dates back to 1975, when at the age of 19 she held a protest in parliament, calling for a “mental” revolution among men, who she said should recognise women’s rights.

“It took just one word, the one expressed on Sunday, to put an end to the injustices and humiliations suffered by more than half of the Portuguese population, who are women,” she said. (Women make up 52 percent of the population of 10.5 million).

The decriminalisation of abortion “will not keep anyone from continuing to fight for their ideas and against the practice of abortion,” she added.

A very different point of view was expressed by Ana Líbano Monteiro, spokeswoman for “Together for Life”, the largest movement within the Platform for the “No” vote. She told IPS that “abortion forms part of a strategy to undermine the family and life itself.”

“We believe that abortion is never a solution, because the psychological and physical damages can stay with the woman for the rest of her life, and that can be seen in the countries where abortion is legal,” said Líbano Monteiro.

She added that she would continue to pressure parliament “to create better social conditions for women.”

That view is at least partly shared by Bishop Carlos Azevedo, secretary of Portugal’s episcopal conference, who said opposition to abortion “is only one of the moral precepts defended by the Church,” which nevertheless did not openly participate in the campaign.

In a country with limited resources, “social support and education must be expanded, especially in rural areas,” to create the conditions that would make it unnecessary for any woman to be forced to have an abortion,” Azevedo told IPS.

Former Portuguese president Mario Soares (1986-1996) said that since democracy was restored in Portugal in 1974, “the weight of conservative thinking” has continued to be felt in this country, even though the Catholic Church “has opened up quite a bit, becoming perhaps less retrograde than the Church in Spain.”

“The Church had a great responsibility in the survival of the Salazar regime,” Soares remarked to IPS, referring to Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, a minister of the dictatorship that began in 1926, who took full power in 1933. . For the EU, the Portuguese referendum “is without a doubt highly significant, especially for Malta, Ireland and Poland,” socialist Eurodeputy Ana Gomes told IPS.

In the last two weeks, Gomes took a break from her activities in the European Parliament to take part in the campaign for the “yes” vote in Lisbon.

“In the European Parliament there is a certain tendency towards a setback in the area of women’s health, by reducing the already limited programmes for sexual and reproductive health,” she said.

If the “no” vote had won out in Portugal, “that would have had repercussions in other countries, especially Poland, where vast conservative sectors are pushing for an even more restrictive law, carrying out a campaign with photos that go so far as to associate aborted foetuses with the Holocaust,” she said.