PORTUGAL – Experts call for a review of abortion law

The Portuguese Contraception Society (SPDC) has warned that Portugal maintains one of the "most restrictive" deadlines in Europe for access to voluntary termination of pregnancy, advocating for the extension of the abortion deadline to at least 12 weeks.

By TPN/Lusa
Sept 27, 2025

"We have a maximum period of 10 weeks, which will place us among the countries with the most restrictive rules, along with Slovenia, for example, while most other European countries set limits of 12, 14, or more [weeks]," SPDC president Amália Pacheco told Lusa on the occasion of World Safe Abortion Day.

For the gynaecologist, this situation reveals "the urgent need" to review Portuguese legislation at this time, aligning it with "all scientific evidence," the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO), and the commitments made at the European level.

Continued: https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2025-09-27/experts-call-for-a-review-of-abortion-law/891181

27.09.2025

News

abortion law reform

Amália Pacheco

International Safe Abortion Day

Portuguese Contraception SocietyPortuguese Contraception Society

World Health Organization

Portugal – Abortion deadline extension debate

The PS has scheduled for January 10th the debate on the bill that intends to extend the period for Voluntary Termination of Pregnancy (IVG) from the current 10 to 12 weeks.

By TPN/Lusa, in News, Portugal
Dec 24, 2024

To Lusa, an official PS source confirmed this schedule and stated that the party will allow other initiatives on the topic to be carried out.

The socialists propose in their bill to extend the period for IVG at the woman's choice from the current 10 to 12 weeks and ensure that conscientious objection does not put access to abortion at risk.

The BE proposes to extend the period, from the current 10 to 14 weeks, for a woman to undergo an IVG of her choice and eliminates the reflection period.

Continued: https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/2024-12-24/abortion-deadline-extension-debate/94400

24.12.2024

News

abortion law reform

Alexandra Leitão

conscientious objection

The fight to secure abortion rights in Portugal

Opinion Piece By Ana Patricia Cardoso
25/11/2024

We want this generation and the next ones to understand that the situation is very bad at the moment, and that we need everyone to put an end to this violation of our fundamental rights

A law passed in a referendum 17 years ago is flouted shamelessly on a daily basis. The result? What could be an agile medical procedure without any problems – especially psychological terms – becomes a race against time and the patriarchy. Before the scenario becomes more serious, we need to inform, warn, open up a conversation, speak in first person and exclude the word ‘guilt’ from our vocabulary.

Continued: https://diem25.org/vtp-and-the-fight-to-guarantee-a-fundamental-right/

25.11.2024

Opinion

Ana Patricia Cardoso

Associação Escolha

belief-based care denial

conscientious objection

Safe havens? As some nations restrict access, a look at Europe’s abortion limits

19/04/2023
Joanna YORK

As US states and nations such as Poland move towards restricting access to abortions, parts of Europe are seen as something of a safe haven for those looking to terminate pregnancies. However, a look at legislation across the continent shows vast discrepancies and how – even if the procedure is often legal – access to abortion is restricted by hurdles ranging from mandatory counselling to a lack of doctors willing to perform the procedure.

More than 95% of women in Europe live in countries that allow some access to abortion. Some 39 European countries have legalised abortion on request, albeit with some restrictions. Six countries have strict limits in place although only three (Andorra, Malta and San Marino) do not allow abortion at all.

Continued: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230419-safe-havens-as-some-nations-restrict-access-a-look-at-europe-s-limits-on-abortion

‘These women are not victims’ – Paula Rego’s extraordinary Abortion series

The artist blazed into Portugal’s 1998 abortion
referendum with powerful images of women in backstreet clinics. But there is no
blood, no gore – just feeling. The works may have helped swing a later vote

Hettie Judah
Thu 9 Jun 2022

In 1998, the year of a Portuguese referendum debate on abortion, Paula Rego
poured her fierce, formidable passion into 10 large paintings set in backstreet
abortion clinics. These were a direct gesture of protest at the cruelty of
anti-abortion laws. Focused on individual women positioned on single beds in
improvised operating theatres, the paintings of the Abortion series are so dark
and claustrophobic that you can almost feel the heat and stickiness, and smell
the adrenal sweat.

Rego pulls the focus of the abortion debate back to the woman’s experience.
There is no blood, no gore, no biological nastiness to see here: this is all
about feeling, both physical and psychological. First-hand discussion of
abortion remains taboo even 24 years later – Rego’s works carry us into the
heart of this unseen, unspoken terrain.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jun/09/women-not-victims-paula-rego-extraordinary-abortion-series

09.06.2022

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation

Developing an Advocacy Agenda for Abortion in the 21st Century and Making Change Happen

Developing an Advocacy Agenda for Abortion in the 21st Century and Making Change Happen

Jan 21, 2019
An International Forum, 5-6-7 September 2018, Lisbon

Introduction
On 5-7 September 2018, the International Campaign for Women’s Right to Safe Abortion hosted an International Forum in Lisbon, Portugal. The aim of the forum was to bring together thought leaders from around the world to examine synergies and discuss how to move global, regional and national work for the right to safe abortion forward.

Some 100 participants from 54 countries attended the Forum. They were abortion rights advocates, health policymakers and professionals, human rights and legal experts, youth activists, researchers, members of civil society organisations and academics. The combination of participants from the grassroots to the UN level secured a dynamic exchange of knowledge and experience.

Continued: https://mailchi.mp/safeabortionwomensright/developing-an-advocacy-agenda-for-abortion-in-the-21st-century-report-of-an-international-forum-lisbon-5-6-7-sept-2018?e=372dd34034

How Europe Feels About Abortion

How Europe Feels About Abortion

Niall McCarthy
May 30, 2018

Ireland has made history by voting to repeal its ban on abortion. The Yes campaign won with 66.4 percent with all but one of the country's constituencies voting to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the constitution. The result underscores the findings of a recent Pew Research Center report which also put Irish support for abortion at 66 percent.

As can be seen from the following infographic which is based on the report's findings, Ireland's historic vote puts it in line with the rest of Western Europe on support for abortion. Net favourability is strongest in Northern Europe at 94 and 92 percent in Sweden and Denmark respectively. Portugal has the strongest level of opposition at 34 percent.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Continued: https://www.statista.com/chart/14037/how-europe-feels-about-abortion/

30.05.2018

poll on legal abortion

Portugal – The Abortion Pastels, Paula Rego

The Abortion Pastels, Paula Rego
May 21, 2018 / womensartblog

In 1998 Portuguese born artist Paula Rego created a series of work entitled Untitled. The Abortion Pastels. Rego created her work in response to a referendum to legalise abortion in Portugal, which was very narrowly defeated. Each canvas depicted the image of a woman undergoing an unsafe abortion.

Rego was born in Portugal in 1935, into what she describes as a repressive, middle-class Portuguese life in which women were highly encouraged to do nothing, while working-class women were forced to do everything. The painter recalls girlhood as a time of learning obedience to men, in addition to secretive and confused messages about puberty, sexual abstention and female propriety. Subsequently, after leaving 1950’s, then fascist Portugal, described by her father as a ‘killer society for women’, to attend London’s Slade School of Fine Art, Rego recollected an era including coerced sex leading to secretive and often tortuous back street abortions. In turn, her Abortion series would be both inspired by her own experiences and that of her fellow female students and what she had witnessed growing up around the small Portuguese villages of her formative years.

Continued: https://womensartblog.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/the-abortion-pastels-paula-rego/

21.05.2018

The doctor who brought abortion out of the shadows in Ireland

The doctor who brought abortion out of the shadows in Ireland
Rebecca Gomperts helps women who can’t terminate pregnancies under the law.

by Jillian Deutsch
3/20/18

AMSTERDAM — Abortion may be illegal in Ireland, but it is already a reality for thousands of women in the country because of packets of pills openly smuggled in by a Dutch doctor and activist called Rebecca Gomperts.

So as Ireland gets ready to hold a referendum on May 25 on whether to legalize the termination of pregnancies in one of the last European countries to ban it, there is already broad consensus among the country’s politicians that it’s time to bring abortion out of the shadows.

Continued: https://www.politico.eu/article/ireland-referendum-abortion-rebecca-gomperts-a-hard-pill-to-swallow-in-ireland/

Refusal to Treat Patients Does Not Work in Any Country—Even If Misleadingly Labelled “Conscientious Objection”

Letter to the Editor: Refusal to Treat Patients Does Not Work in Any Country—Even If Misleadingly Labelled “Conscientious Objection”

On September 6, 2017 · In Perspectives
Christian Fiala and Joyce H. Arthur

We would like to point out some serious problems and contradictions in the study “Regulation of Conscientious Objection to Abortion: An International Comparative Multiple-Case Study,” by Wendy Chavkin, Laurel Swerdlow, and Jocelyn Fifield (Health and Human Rights Journal, vol. 19, no. 1, 2017).

The study purports to show that it is possible to accommodate health care providers’ “conscientious objection” (CO) to legal abortion while assuring that women with an unwanted pregnancy have access to health care services. The researchers examined four countries—England, Italy, Portugal, and Norway—all Western democracies with laws that allow CO for abortion. They conclude that England, Norway, and Portugal are able to permit CO by law and still provide and fund abortion care. Italy is the major exception, where access to legal abortion is seriously compromised due to a very high number of objectors.

Continued at source: Health & Human Rights Journal: https://www.hhrjournal.org/2017/09/letter-to-the-editor-refusal-to-treat-patients-does-not-work-in-any-country-even-if-misleadingly-labelled-conscientious-objection/