Abortion: the Portuguese case

Abortion was completely illegal in Portugal until 1984. Illegal abortion provision was a matter of silence until then and treated as a "black market" issue rather than as a health issue. The first attempts to change the abortion law began in 1982 after two trials and a national campaign for legal abortion and contraception. In 1984, the law was changed and abortion became legal on four grounds: risk to the woman's life, risk to her physical or mental health, fetal malformation and pregnancy resulting from rape. At the beginning of the 1990s, the Family Planning Association (APF), some women's organisations, trade unions, health professional associations and other NGOs came together to form the Right to Choose Platform. In 1993 a Report on the Abortion Situation in Portugal was presented to the Parliament and Ministries of Health and Justice, followed by public debates. In 1998 the law was changed to allow existing grounds to be applied beyond 12 weeks of pregnancy but bills and a referendum to make abortion available on request to 12 weeks of pregnancy were lost by a tiny margin twice in this period. At the end of 2001 the biggest trial on illegal abortion started in Maia, a small town in the north of the country, which had an immediate and enormous impact on public opinion. An increasing number of public opinion-makers, some prestigious health professionals and even the President of the Republic have recently declared that the law should be changed. The election of a right-wing parliamentary majority in March 2002, however, means that abortion law reform will again be postponed.