Portugal Votes to Legalize Abortion
Although voter turnout was only about 40 percent in today’s nation-wide referendum — well under the 50 percent threshold required to be met for the outcome of the referendum to be binding — over 59 percent of Portuguese voters expressed support for a change to the country’s abortion law that would legalize abortion up to the 10th week of pregnancy.
Portugal currently has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the European Union. Only Ireland, Malta and Poland have such similarly strict legislation.
The mainly Catholic country currently allows abortions up the 12th week to save a woman’s life or to preserve her mental or physical health.
In cases of rape, abortions are allowed within 16 weeks. The limit is 24 weeks if there is a risk that the child will be born with an incurable disease or deformity.
As a result many Portuguese women go to Spain for terminations or resort to illegal abortions.
Prime Minister Jose Socrates, who may or may not know that the unexamined life is not worth living, intends to proceed with legalization despite the low turnout: “The law will now be discussed and approved in parliament. Our interest is to fight clandestine abortion and we have to produce a law that respects the result of the referendum.”
There will be intense opposition in parliament, but the Portuguese people have spoken and there is now light at the end of Portugal’s tunnel of medieval darkness.
6 Responses to “Portugal Votes to Legalize Abortion”
Medieval darkness? So glad that you’re engaging in enlightened discussion instead of engaging in rhetorical attacks against those whose position is in opposition to yours.
Well, hopefully this will save Spain a fair sum of money and Portuguese women a trip. Spain has free abortion clinics along the border with Portugal and offers service to any woman in need.
The abortion debate is a tough one. I think abortion should remain legal, but understand the position of those who would want to make it illegal. In fact I actually understand the radical anti-abortion activists better than the softer ones. If I thought someone was really murdering babies I’d get radical too. “Soft opposition” to abortion recognizes that a fetus isn’t really as much as a baby. It’s a tough subject, one where few have really consistent non-contradictory views (I include myself). I’m glad I live in a country where it’s legal, though.
So I guess Torquemada is really dead.
While I respect that those who feel strongly about abortion, stem cell research and related subjects are sincere, some parts of the debate really annoy me.
On the one hand, embryos are given the same ‘life’ value as an adult, but on the other, the mothers have been devalued to be no more than the vessel for the embryo.
-In China we’ve seen forced abortions for the sake of the state.
-Elsewhere we see banned abortions for the sake of other principles.
Everyone wants to make the judgments and decisions for the woman involved. It’s high time we valued women enough to respect the very private, complex and difficult decisions they have to make.
Everyone wants to make the judgments and decisions for the woman involved. It’s high time we valued women enough to respect the very private, complex and difficult decisions they have to make. domajot,
Of course the decision for a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy is a complex and difficult one, and she should be supported through that decision. But in no other case that involves the taking of a life do we allow the individuals to make that decision (end of life for terminally ill- you may disagree, but in almost all states the family can’t make that decision, for example; death penalty- we don’t let the victims decide; battered/abused spouse- we don’t allow them to hire a hit man to kill the abuser).
In fact, the emotions involved make it impossible for the person who is so close to the situation and so personally affected, to make the morally correct decision IMO.
If you really don’t believe that the fetus is a human being, then I understand your feelings about the mother’s right to decide. But the current situation in the US is that people who do believe that the fetus is a human being are, as Lynx pointed out, feeling the necessity to “get radical” to get people to think about the killing that is taking place. Pro-choice activists have pretty successfully removed that thought process from the debate, saying that only the woman who finds herself pregnant should make the determination of whether or not she’s carrying a human life in her womb. That’s absurdly inconsistent with the way society treats any other situation; I understand that the inconsistency is due to our concerns for the women’s situation, but we should handle that in other ways (more public support for pregnant women, more acceptance of adoption as an alternative, for example– as well as requiring men to take more responsibility for the children they father.)
CStanley,
You mix too many concepts: human lide, fetus, embgyo, killing.
When I look at the glob of cells that comprise an early stage embryo, there is no doubt in my mind that this is not a formed fetus, much less the ‘baby’ pro-lifers cry about. It is potemtially a fetus, which is potentially a baby. “Potentially” is a mile high barrier between what is and what could be.
Your vague references to supporting the woman through an unwanted pregnancy do not even begin to address the full issue, I’m afraid. Check into the suffering of those unwanted babies as they progess through the foster care system that ‘supports’ them. Some women would reasonably choose not to subject the ‘potential’ child to that. Adoption can work well if you are a cute and healthy baby, much less well if you have a health problem or are very dark complexioned. How is society going to ‘support’ the mother as she spends the rest of her life agonizing over the fate of her child?
I contemplate a glob of cells, and I say it is not as important as the woman whose life will be afftected from that moment until her death.
To use terms like ‘killing’ is a political ploy, to bring the subject into the same realm as the emotionally charged ‘murder’. Abortion is an intervention in a process, precisely to prevent reaching a stage where the killing of a person is involved.
As long as you bring up end-of-life decisions, this fits in perfectly wtih my frustration with those who want to make a private and complex decision the realm of the state. Why should someone who has lost all claim to dignity due to an illness or suffering pain be compelled to keep breathing and suffering to satisfy someone else’s principles?
In both situations, the individual is sacrificed on the altar of someone else’s know-better principles. In fact, I would argue that intervening in such an afflicted person’s decision to stop breathin is cruel punishment, indeed.
The fact is, very moral principles often conflict. To sort out the conflict, humility is needed on the part of those making decisions for other people. It is seldom good against evil; it is usually between different shades of both.
And there is no one-answer-fits-all.
My
Those who believe abortion is wrong, should never have one. Let other people make their own decisions.