Tomorrow, Portuguese voters have a chance to strike down one of Europe's harshest abortion laws at a referendum on a proposal for abortion on demand during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The outcome is difficult to predict in a country where more than 90 percent of people still declare themselves to be Catholic but only a third are regular churchgoers.
Polls show a majority in favor of changing the law, but the younger people who want change are the least likely to vote. A vote in favor of abortion would mark a seismic change in Portuguese society, showing that the church has lost its centuries-old hold on the nation's soul.
Nine years ago, at a similar referendum, Portugal voted to maintain a law that campaigners blame for forcing up to 40,000 women a year to seek abortions abroad or in back-street clinics run by parteiras or "capable women."
PHOTO: AFP
"I see at least one woman a week here who wants to end her pregnancy," said social worker Jose Antonio Pinto at his office in the Campanha district of Porto. Most, he said, would give birth if they could. "But they have no job or their partner is in jail or they have nowhere to live," he said.
Poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and an absence of family planning clinics make the women of Campanha easy pickings for the parteiras.
"They charge around 150 euros, payable in instalments," he said.
The women who go to parteiras do not just risk jail terms but also put their health and future fertility in danger.
Maria from Porto, recalled a visit with a friend to a back-street clinic when they were students.
"We were like two criminals," she said. "She didn't even see the face of the person who did it. It was all over in 15 minutes and when we left she could hardly walk. It was a terrible experience."
Pinto, who stood trial five years ago accused of helping women to break the abortion law, said many of the 5,600 Portuguese women who end up in hospital each year after "spontaneously" aborting at home have passed through the hands of the parteiras.
A court was set up at a sports stadium in the town of Maia five years ago to try Pinto and 40 others accused of breaking the abortion law, including 17 women from Campanha and other poor areas. The trial, which drew international condemnation, saw the nurse who performed the abortions given an eight-year prison term. She received a partial pardon in 2003. Sandra Cardoso, the only woman to admit being a client, was given a suspended sentence, while Pinto was cleared on appeal.
The campaign to change the law, which permits abortion only in cases of rape, fetal malformation or if a mother's health is at serious risk, is being led by the Socialist prime minister, Jose Socrates.
"We have to end this blight of backstreet abortions," he said when announcing the referendum. "It makes Portugal a backward place."
Church radio stations were this week broadcasting anti-abortion messages, telling listeners they were "still in time to save lives" and reminding them that the unborn were "children of God". Cardinal Jose Policarpo, the patriarch of Lisbon, declared abortion to be "an attack on civilization" while a bishop said it was an "abominable crime."
But the church's influence is waning. The abortion referendum provides a crucial test of how far people have drifted from it over the past nine years as the country has reaped the economic benefits of EU membership.
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