by Pedro Aguiar Pinto

On 28 June 1998, the people of Portugal rejected a proposal to end all legal protection of unborn children. There was a referendum on abortion, the first referendum in the history of Portuguese democracy. The day was beautiful and sunny, and so was the outcome.

The referendum was the conclusion of a tortuous political battle that started in early 1997. At that time, Parliament debated a law that would have permitted abortion in the first 12 weeks of the child’s life. This proposal was voted down, by a single vote. But in early 1998, pro-abortionists raised the issue again, with a small change. This time around they proposed to permit abortion in the first ten weeks of life, hoping to pick up at least one more critical vote.

Juntos Pela Vida (Joined by Life) mobilized pro-lifers to oppose the law, but the pro-abortionists’ strategy was successful. The law was approved by a coalition of socialists and Communists, with a solid majority of 13 votes.

The Prime Minister is a Catholic with real conviction, and he had promised a referendum on this issue. Despite the opposition of his own party and also the Communists, he pushed through a plan for a referendum on abortion.

Most political parties—all but the Communists—decided not to get involved in the fight, and left the decision to the voters, arguing that the vote was properly a matter of individual conscience. Juntos Pela Vida decided to work in a coalition with another citizens’ group, Platform: Solidarity and Life, to keep the present law in place and avoid having the law get even worse. Current law, approved in 1984, allows abortion under several conditions, including cases of rape, when the pregnancy is a threat to the mother’s health, and when the child is disabled or malformed. The coalition brought together Catholics and other religious groups, including Jews, Muslims, several Protestant denominations, atheists and agnostics.

In order to get broadcast time on television and radio, pro-lifers formed new regional groups that joined the other two pro-life groups in collecting signatures to petition for campaign publicity time. The two new regional groups were North Life in the north of Portugal, and Abortion on Demand?—No in Coimbra. Each group needed 5,000 signatures to qualify. Overall, the four groups managed to get 120,000 signatures, far more than the minimum necessary.

The wording of the referendum was long, confusing and misleading: “Do you agree with the withdrawal of penalty in case of voluntary interruption of pregnancy if performed at the woman’s request, within the first ten weeks, in a health establishment legally authorized?” The language disguised the true reality of abortion with the soft phrase “voluntary interruption of pregnancy.” And to vote pro-life, you had to say “no,” which is always tougher to say than “yes.”

Juntos Pela Vida concentrated on affirming the uniqueness of each human being and the value of life as the first of the human rights, and on showing the reality of the baby hidden in the mother’s womb. It was accused of lying, of demagogy, of wanting to make criminals out of all the women who have had abortions in the past, of being associated with clandestine abortionists, of wanting to impose its religious convictions on others, etc., etc.

The “yes” campaign used standard arguments. It promoted the usual “freedom of choice,” and said that it wanted to end clandestine abortions. One key argument it used was for “tolerance” toward the women who, under very dramatic circumstances, are ‘‘compelled’’ to abort their babies. Nobody favors abortion, proponents said, but who are we to jail the poor woman who makes such a hard decision?

When Juntas Pela Vida started its educational campaign on 17 June, the polls looked very bad, with 30 percent “NO” (pro-life) and 70 percent “YES” (pro-abortion). All the major media appeared to be biased against the people who worked in the “NO” campaign.

In the end of the dramatic race, the referendum was decided by the huge abstention. Among those who voted, the vote was very close (50.91 percent pro-life versus 49.09 percent pro-abortion). But to be binding, the referendum had to draw at least 50 percent of all registered voters, and a huge majority (69 percent) abstained.

One week before the referendum there was a conference in Lisbon, addressed by Carlo Cassini, an Italian member of the European Parliament, and chairman of the Italian Pro-Life group. He said that the fact that Our Lady of Fatima had appeared in Portugal made our country special and gave us a special responsibility. He hoped that the example of Portugal would reverse the tide now running against life in Europe.

Pedro Aguilar Pinto works with Juntos Pela Vida in Portugal.

HLI Reports, August 1998