Portuguese to hold abortion vote

[Zarathustra]

BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6067200.stm)

Portuguese to hold abortion vote



http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41056000/jpg/_41056933_1portugalap203c.jpg
The pro-abortion lobby is challenging Catholic tradition



MPs in Portugal have agreed that the country should hold a new referendum on whether to legalise abortion.


Currently abortions are only legal in Portugal if a woman has been raped, if her life is in danger, or if the baby has serious abnormalities.
But the governing Socialist Party is proposing that women should be allowed to choose an abortion up to the 10th week of pregnancy.
The public vote is expected to be set for January.
It was proposed by the governing Socialists, and backed by the main opposition centre-right Social Democrats and the far-left Left Block.
The Communist party voted against, while the Christian Democrats abstained.

Illegal terminations

Prime Minister Jose Socrates has said he wants to end the situation where the abortion ban leads to women having illegal backstreet terminations.
"The party wants the sore of illegal abortions to cease to exist because it is a sign of a backward country," he said.
Campaigners say that while rich women can afford to go abroad for abortions, thousands of poor women end up in hospital each year after resorting to backstreet operations.

Opponents of abortion in the mainly Roman Catholic country argue that an unborn child should be protected as forcefully as a born one.
The last referendum on the subject, in 1998, was defeated when large numbers of people boycotted the vote, making the result invalid.
Portugal has some of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws.
Poland and Ireland have comparable legislation, while Malta forbids abortion altogether.

.....................

[Roaming East]

That'll fix the exploding birth rate...







/sarcasm

[Eddy]

Good news for them, maybe next year they'll allow women to go out during the day.

[Zarathustra]

That'll fix the exploding birth rate...







/sarcasm

LOL Yeah as if they really need to lower their birth rate... :roll:

[Rune_X2]

LOL Yeah as if they really need to lower their birth rate... I think he was being sarcastic. Anyway Portugal has a birth rate at around 1.4 child/woman. Any lower than that and they'll have to start with infanticide. ahh I see they're talking about abortion (fetacide sounds like something you buy in Greece), so I guess they're already on the case.

[Zarathustra]

I think he was being sarcastic. Anyway Portugal has a birth rate at around 1.4 child/woman. Any lower than that and they'll have to start with infanticide. ahh I see they're talking about abortion (fetacide sounds like something you buy in Greece), so I guess they're already on the case.

I know he was being sarcastic, that's why I lol'ed at his sad but true comment.
1.4 child/woman now with anti-abortion law. If that law is approved, let's guess it will fall down to 1 or so.

[Lancero]

Good news for them, maybe next year they'll allow women to go out during the day.


And with a islamic scarf over their heads if they want to. Our government i'm sure wont legislate on that.

Portugal has, in fact, a population growt rate problem - only about 0.36% - but it still doubles the EU average rate - about 0.15%.
Still, our birth rate is not that bad - 10.72 births/1,000 population - wich makes us better than the EU average, about 10.00.
You might want to ad the infant mortality rate: Portugal 5.05 vs. EU 5.10 deaths/1,000 live births.
As for abortion law: nowadays, women who want to abort just do it - either on illegal clinics or in Spain. The ones who do it in Portugal are ALL aquited by the courts.
Altought i dont agree with the "free abortion 'til 10 weeks policy", i prefer women who really want to abort to be able to do it in specialised clinics and with proper medical assistance.

We had a referendum abou the abortion law in 1998. The country was divided 50/50. It was a glorious summer day and most ellectors prefered a good day at the beach. I believe this time will be diferent. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_referendum_on_Abortion%2C_1998

[Boina verde]

Maybe Lancero, maybe.

[Eddy]

We had a referendum abou the abortion law in 1998. The country was divided 50/50. It was a glorious summer day and most ellectors prefered a good day at the beach. I believe this time will be diferent.

For women's sake, lets hope so.

[Macs.]

Abortion should be very very very limited.

If you are too stupid to use a condom or take a pill etc, don't have ***.

[Lancero]

If I remember correctly, the current law allows abortion on this conditions:

- Danger of death or serious and irreversible injury to the body and fisical or psiquic health of the women (allowed on the fist 12 weeks of pregnancy).

- Incurable and serious illness or congenital malformation to the baby (allowed on the first 24 weeks)

- The pregnancy having resulted of a *** crime (rape) (allowed on the first 16 weeks)

[scottl333]

Abortion should be very very very limited.

If you are too stupid to use a condom or take a pill etc, don't have ***.


Condoms are way to expensive for people to use them. lol. I agree it should be limited instead of way for stupid lazy people to find a easy way out of things. I dont understand it. In the hood I grew up in, there were girls that had 5 kids by the age of 22 or 23. I dont understand people sometimes. If you dont want a kid, use a condom or the pill or dont have ***. Its not to hard.

[Willy]

Abortion should be very very very limited.

If you are too stupid to use a condom or take a pill etc, don't have ***.

Those things aren't 100% sure.

[Roanoke]

Those things aren't 100% sure.

Then *gasp* abstain.

If you're going to have *** without taking into account having a child come into your life, then you're an idiot.

[Cedan]

Abortion should be very very very limited.

If you are too stupid to use a condom or take a pill etc, don't have ***.

yeah well everyone is not a genious like you :roll:

[Lancero]

Portugal Polls Show Conflicting Results on Legalizing Abortion There
(http://www.lifenews.com/printpage.php)

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 20, 2006

Lisbon, Portugal (LifeNews.com) -- Two new polls in Portugal have vastly different results on whether residents of the Catholic nation want to legalize abortion there. The polls come just one day after the country's parliament approved sending an abortion referendum to the voters, who will likely head to the polls in January. A poll published on Friday in the daily newspaper Publico claimed 53 percent of eligible voters favor making abortion legal while 21 percent want to continue to prohibit it.
Another 10 percent said they had no opinion and 16 percent said they wouldn't vote.
The Publico poll found, however, that Portuguese residents don't agree with the language of the abortion referendum, which would legalize all abortions within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Over 70 percent of voters there favor legal abortion in cases of rape and incest, but only 34 percent said they back legalized abortion for any reason.
That means Portuguese people favor existing law, which makes abortions illegal but allows them through the 12th week of pregnancy in cases of rape, incest, life of the mother, or when the unborn child has severe physical or mental handicaps.
That poll differs from a survey published Thursday in the daily newspaper Correio da Manha which found just 47.9 percent of voters want to legalize abortion while 39.9 percent are opposed.
In that poll, older residents and those in rural areas were more likely to prefer keeping abortion illegal.
Whether residents of the Western European nation will approve the abortion referendum is another matter.
In 1998, Portuguese voters turned down a referendum seeking to legalize abortion by a 51-49 percentage vote and only 30 percent of those eligible to vote participated.
In March 2004, members of Portugal's parliament voted down three separate proposals to legalize abortion after more than 200,000 petitions were submitted against them.
"The solution for a woman in difficulty should never be the death of her unborn child," one of the leaders of a pro-life coalition, Teresa Aires de Campos, said after the vote.
"We want to create a society where a newborn child is never seen as a burden that needs to be eliminated. We want to create a country where a child is always welcomed."
The debate between now and January, which has not yet been set as the official date for the vote, will likely focus on the number of illegal abortions that occur in the European nation. Supporters of making abortion legal use the argument that illegal abortions are hurting women, even though legalizing the procedure doesn't make it any safer.
Pro-abortion groups claim that about 10,000 illegal abortions occur every year in Portugal. Approximately 1,000 legal abortions are currently done each year in Portugal and many women travel to neighboring Spain to have abortions done outside the country's current limits.
Before the measure can go before voters, the nation's Constitutional Court and the president must approve the proposal, but that is considered a formality.
If the referendum is approved, the likely question will be: "Do you agree that an abortion performed during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with the consent of the woman in a legal medical establishment, cease being viewed as a crime?"
Prime Minister Jose Socrates has vowed he and his Socialist Party will actively campaign in favor of the referendum.
Last year a Portugal court blocked a vote the government had planned for November. The court ruled the vote could not take place before September 2006 because the country's parliament previously rejected a measure earlier in the year to hold a vote.
Among European nations, Poland and Ireland also have similar abortion prohibitions and Malta bans abortion altogether.




http://www.lifenews.com/nat2678.html

[*^*]

Good news for them, maybe next year they'll allow women to go out during the day.

And your point is ? :roll:

[*^*]

If you are too stupid to use a condom or take a pill etc, don't have ***.

Exactly.

...........

[Get_It]

Portuguese Catholic leader says church will fight proposol to ease abortion law
October 26, 2006
LISBON, Portugal - Catholics must lead the campaign to defeat a proposal on legalizing abortion in Portugal, a senior church official said in comments made available Thursday.
Cardinal Jose da Cruz Policarpo, the Patriarch of Lisbon, said a planned referendum on making abortion legal up to the 10th week of pregnancy could bring "a tolerant and permissive law" that must be blocked.
"Catholics, because they believe life is a gift from God and is part of divine life, have to be in the front line of the battle for life," Policarpo said in a speech at Lisbon's Cathedral Wednesday night. Audio excerpts of his speech were made available Thursday on the Web site of the Catholic radio station Renascenca.
Parliament last week agreed to hold a referendum on permitting abortion. Portugal's president is expected to schedule a ballot for January.
Currently, abortions are granted in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country only under exceptional circumstances, including rape or the mother's medical need, through the 12th week of pregnancy.
Policarpo's call for resistance to an easing of the law was not surprising, but his first public announcement on the issue since the referendum was agreed gave notice that the church will not soften its stance.
The governing center-left Socialist Party, which has long campaigned for the relaxation of abortion laws that are among the most restrictive in Europe, says women simply seek abortions either at backstreet clinics or by traveling to countries where abortion is available at private medical centers.
Pro-choice groups claim around 10,000 women are hospitalized every year with complications arising from botched backstreet abortions.
Policarpo said the political arguments in favor of changes to the law were "weak and sometimes contradictory," though he acknowledged that backstreet abortions were traumatic.
"We are ready to love and even understand all those who go through such drama, but we cannot support a law that makes life a relative value," he said.
Policarpo, who is known for his conservative views, campaigned in the streets alongside pro-life activists during a 1998 referendum on making abortion legal.
That vote was declared void because of a low turnout, but with the "No" vote winning narrowly. More than 50 percent of the country's registered voters need to cast ballots for a referendum to be valid.
source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/26/europe/EU_GEN_Portugal_Abortion.php

Best regards,

[nagant_m44]

Abortion should be very very very limited.

If you are too stupid to use a condom or take a pill etc, don't have ***.

x2

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[Luno]

Ahh this explains the weird mail with pictures of babies i did get yesterday :)

[Kaapeli]

I totally agree that people who don't use contraception and aren't ready for the consequences shouldn't have ***.

But that is not a realistic thinking. The problem is that there's always plenty of people who are stupid and irresponsible with or without abortion laws. Also contraception isn't 100%.
So do we actually want these stupid/irresponsible/accidents having children that they don't want to have? How is that in the child's and familys interests? Don't we have enough dysfunctional families and parents that just don't care about their kids whom they never really wanted to have? Why would we want to have more by banning abortion?

It's strange that some people would rather have irresponsible and stupid straight couples having children and creating dysfunctional families they never wanted than a kid having two loving and responsible samesex parents who actually want to have children and a family.

[khukuri]

I dont consider it to be a free liberal country without the right of adoption

[kaspur_eh]

Instead of killing the baby they should kill the mother.

[Lancero]

I dont consider it to be a free liberal country without the right of adoption

maybe its my english, but i dont understand this sentence.


Instead of killing the baby they should kill the mother.

:cantbeli:Great post n.º 1000. Hope it's your last.
Serious, hope it was sarcasm

[khukuri]

sorry what I meant is that I think its a basic human right in any democratic and free soceity to have abortions right. For me as a muslim, anti abortion people reminds me of our own sharia law people