Portugal abortion women cleared

[NewJerseyDem]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3496797.stm

A Portuguese court has acquitted seven women accused of having abortions.

The doctor who allegedly carried out the abortions, and nine "accomplices" including the husbands and boyfriends of the women, were also cleared.

The case reignited a familiar debate in the Roman Catholic country, where abortion is outlawed except in cases of rape or serious foetal disability.

Pro-abortion activists are lobbying for a referendum on abortion. A referendum in 1998 was narrowly defeated.

[iverglas]

1. wonderful news

In 1998, a year after these charges were laid, Portuguese voters defeated a proposal for a law permitting abortion on demand in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy by 51% to 49%.

Portugal's anti-abortion laws are the most backward and uncivilized in Europe outside Ireland, and are very obviously not democratic.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4376883

Duarte Vilar, executive director of the Family Planning Association, welcomed the decision but said it would not end such prosecutions. "With this law, we are only going to be waiting for the next court case, and that's all," he said.

Vilar estimated that 20,000 to 40,000 illegal abortions are carried out each year. Thousands of women also cross into neighboring Spain for abortions.

Abortions are banned except when carried out because of danger to the life or health of the mother, a malformed fetus or rape. There are about 700 legal abortions annually, Vilar said.

... Just under 65 percent of Portuguese back decriminalizing abortion, according to a Diario de Noticias/TSF poll published this month.

In a coutry as poor as Portugal --

http://www.eubusiness.com/topics/Portugal

One in five Portuguese residents lives below the poverty line, the highest rate in the 15-member European Union, a European Commission study published Tuesday said.

-- illegal abortion is unsafe abortion:

http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/031216142926.q5x43n57

Five women died last year and more than 11,000 required hospital treatment following clandestine abortions, according to health ministry figures.

That article also describes the bizarre lengths to which the government went in this case to persecute women and people who help them:

Public prosecutors in the central fishing town of Aveiro have also charged the doctor alleged to have performed the abortions as well as nine other people considered acomplices.

These include the parents of one young woman who acompanied their daughter on the day of her abortion and a taxi driver who drove another woman to the location where her abortion was carried out.

As in the last multiple abortion trial in Portugal in January 2002, the case has led to angry calls for changes to the highly restrictive legislation.

Does the concept of "witchhunt" come to mind ... ?

.

[NewJerseyDem]

2. Hopefully, there will be another referendum

I would think that it would have a better chance of passing now. The referendum would only allow abortion in the first 10 weeks so it is hard for me to see why so many people would have a problem with that.