Portugal’s 2007 abortion referendum: a yes vote that did not bind

The polling stations opened at eight in the morning on Sunday 11 February 2007 and closed at seven in the evening. Each voter went alone into the booth with a ballot paper that carried a single question, marked the square under the word SIM or the one under NÃO, and folded the paper in four.2 sources2 sources

There were 8,814,016 people on the electoral roll. When the count was done, 3,840,176 of them had voted. Yes had 2,231,529 votes and no had 1,534,669, a margin of almost 700,000 and a share of 59.25 per cent for yes.1 source1 source

It was the second time Portugal had been asked. Nine years earlier the same words had been put to voters and rejected by 48,624 votes. This time the answer was yes. But under the Constitution the result could not bind parliament, because fewer than half the electorate had turned out.3 sources3 sources

Until 1984 abortion was banned outright in Portugal. Under the dictatorship that fell in 1974, even family planning and contraception were forbidden in the name of a Catholic, pro-natalist ideology. The 1976 Constitution recognised a right to family planning, and family-planning clinics opened in health centres that year.1 source1 source

Law 6/84 made abortion lawful in four situations: danger to the woman’s life, a risk of serious and lasting harm to her physical or mental health, serious malformation of the foetus, and pregnancy from rape. Law 90/97 lengthened the time limits for malformation and rape. That framework lasted until 2007.2 sources2 sources

Few abortions happened inside that law. Estimates for the 1970s, cited by the sociologist Rosa Monteiro, ran from 100,000 to 200,000 clandestine abortions a year, and by one 1999 calculation only 1 to 2 per cent of abortions in Portugal were legal. A survey by the family-planning association APF estimated about 17,000 clandestine abortions in 2005. All these figures are uncertain, since illegal acts are not counted.1 source1 source

In February 1997 parliament rejected bills that would have allowed abortion on request and passed only the narrower changes that became Law 90/97. A year later it tried again. In February 1998 deputies approved in principle a Socialist bill, its first signatory the deputy Sérgio Sousa Pinto, that allowed abortion on request up to ten weeks after a counselling consultation.1 source1 source

The Social Democrats (PSD), the main centre-right party, wanted the people to decide first. In January 1998 a group of their deputies proposed a referendum, and in March parliament approved one with a question drafted by the Socialists. The Socialist prime minister, António Guterres, opposed the change on personal religious and moral grounds, and Monteiro writes that a deal between him and the PSD leader, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, sent the bill to the voters. Rebelo de Sousa was for no, but gave PSD members a free vote.3 sources3 sources

Portugal had no tradition of national referendums. The 1976 Constitution allowed none until a revision in 1989, and the only earlier precedent was the 1933 plebiscite on the Estado Novo constitution, in which abstentions counted as votes in favour.1 source1 source

The President of the Republic asked the Constitutional Court to rule quickly so that the vote could be held before the traditional summer holidays, and it took place on Sunday 28 June 1998. Only 2,709,503 of 8,496,089 registered voters took part. No won by 1,356,754 votes to 1,308,130. The result did not bind parliament, but parliament chose not to continue with the bill it had approved in principle.3 sources3 sources

Declared spending was uneven. In accounts filed with the electoral commission, the Church-linked movement Juntos pela Vida declared 36.3 million escudos, more than twice as much as any other campaigner that filed accounts. The Socialist Party filed no accounts for the campaign, and the PSD declared it had spent nothing.2 sources2 sources

Opponents of change had argued that, in practice, no woman was put on trial under the law. Monteiro writes that the trials of the following years undermined that argument. She lists four that drew national attention: Maia (2001 to 2002), Setúbal (2003 to 2006), Aveiro (2003 to 2007) and Lisbon (2004).1 source1 source

Earlier trials had also stirred protest. In 1979 the journalist Maria Antónia Palla and Conceição Massano were tried over abortion, and the outcry led the Communist Party to table the first bill on the subject in 1982.1 source1 source

At Maia, north of Porto, 43 people stood trial, among them 17 women accused of having abortions and the nurse and midwife Maria do Céu Ribeiro, accused of running a clandestine clinic with a network of recruiters. The prosecutor asked for 12 years for her. On 18 January 2002 she was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison; a 2005 report in JN gives seven.3 sources3 sources

According to TSF radio, 13 of the women were acquitted, one charge was time-barred, and one woman who had confessed was sentenced to four months in prison, convertible to a fine. In 2003 President Jorge Sampaio pardoned six months of Ribeiro’s sentence, which drew protests from Catholic associations and parties of the right, above all the CDS.2 sources2 sources

At Aveiro, the 17 defendants were a doctor accused of charging women for abortions at his surgery, two of his employees, seven women and seven relatives or partners who had gone with them. Phone taps and the women’s gynaecological examinations were ruled inadmissible, and during the trial evidence went missing. On 17 February 2004, with about 500 demonstrators for decriminalisation outside, the court acquitted everyone for lack of evidence.3 sources3 sources

The bishop of Aveiro, António Marcelino, accused the demonstrators of trying to pressure the judges. The appeal court in Coimbra annulled the verdict in December 2005 and accepted three of the medical examinations as evidence. At a new hearing in July 2006 the doctor was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison, and an employee and three of the women to suspended sentences; the other 12 defendants were acquitted.2 sources2 sources

At Setúbal, a 76-year-old nurse and midwife went on trial in June 2004 with two women aged 26. Prosecutors said she had performed abortions in her home, for payment, since 1985.2 sources2 sources

In August 2004 the Dutch foundation Women on Waves, invited by two Portuguese associations, Clube Safo and Não te Prives, chartered a ship, the Borndiep, and sailed from Amsterdam for Figueira da Foz. They planned meetings, seminars and workshops on board about family planning, sexually transmitted diseases and decriminalising abortion, from 30 August to 12 September.1 source1 source

On 27 August, as the ship approached, the Secretary of State for the Sea banned it from Portuguese territorial waters, citing reports that it would distribute unauthorised medicines and encourage acts illegal in Portugal. That day a navy warship took position beside the Borndiep. Monteiro writes that navy corvettes were sent on the orders of the defence minister, Paulo Portas of the CDS-PP.2 sources2 sources

The administrative court in Coimbra refused to lift the ban on 6 September, finding that the organisers meant to give Portuguese women the abortion pill RU486, then not sold in Portugal. The ship went back to the Netherlands on 10 September. In the meantime there were seminars in Lisbon and Figueira da Foz, demonstrations of support and, by the foundation’s count, about 700 press and broadcast items.1 source1 source

The associations took the case to Strasbourg. On 3 February 2009 the European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously that Portugal had violated their freedom of expression: banning the ship outright and sending a warship against a civilian vessel had been disproportionate. It awarded each of the three applicants €2,000.1 source1 source

The Socialists returned to power in 2005 under José Sócrates, who had put a new referendum in the party’s manifesto. The first attempt failed: the Constitutional Court ruled in October 2005 that a referendum proposal could not be renewed in the same legislative session, and did not look at the question itself.2 sources2 sources

On 19 October 2006 parliament approved the proposal again, with the exact wording of 1998. On 15 November the Constitutional Court found it constitutional by seven votes to six. The dissenting judges doubted the question’s clarity, and some objected that Portuguese living abroad could not vote. President Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who had 20 days to decide, called the vote for 11 February 2007.3 sources3 sources

This time the Socialist Party campaigned openly for yes, alongside the Left Bloc and the Communists. The CDS-PP opposed the change. The PSD again gave its members a free vote, its leader Luís Marques Mendes calling abortion a matter for each citizen’s conscience, and several of its leading figures campaigned for no.4 sources4 sources

The yes campaign stressed the health risks of backstreet abortion and the prosecution of women, rather than a right to choose. Opponents argued that the state had a duty to protect unborn life, and pro-life groups had long warned that legal abortion would only become more common. On 9 February the no campaign closed with a rally in Braga, where Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was among the speakers expected; Sócrates was the main guest at the yes movements’ closing dinner in Lisbon.4 sources4 sources

Monteiro, who counts both the PSD and the CDS-PP among the opponents of decriminalisation, credits the result to a united left, wider alliances among women’s groups and a Socialist government whose leader backed the change.1 source1 source

Besides the parties, 16 citizens’ groups filed campaign accounts, from Médicos pela Escolha and Jovens pelo Sim to Norte pela Vida and Alentejo pelo Não. Juntos pela Vida, Mais Aborto Não, the platform Não Obrigada and the far-right PNR party filed none, and the commission opened proceedings against them.1 source1 source

To bind parliament, more than 4,407,008 people would have had to vote, about 567,000 more than did. Even so, turnout was almost 12 points higher than in 1998, and yes won 923,000 more votes than it had then.3 sources3 sources

The country split along a north-south line. Yes won 11 of the 18 mainland districts, with its largest shares in the Alentejo and around Lisbon: 83.9 per cent in Beja and 82 per cent in Setúbal. No won in seven northern and central districts, from Viana do Castelo and Braga to Viseu, Guarda and Aveiro, and in both island regions. In the Azores, where turnout was lowest, only 29.5 per cent voted, and 69.3 per cent of them said no.1 source1 source

Parliament treated the result as a mandate. It approved Law 16/2007 on 8 March 2007. President Cavaco Silva promulgated it on 10 April without asking the Constitutional Court to review it first, and it was published on 17 April.2 sources2 sources

With the law, Cavaco Silva sent parliament a message urging further safeguards: women should be told about adoption and counselled on the possible health consequences of an abortion, and the father should be able to attend the counselling, though the decision would stay with the woman.1 source1 source

The law also told the National Health Service to organise itself so that terminations could be done within the legal limits, and told the government to make sure conscientious objection did not stop that. A ministerial order of 21 June 2007 set out how hospitals and clinics should run the service.2 sources2 sources

Thirty-three deputies asked the Constitutional Court to strike the law down. They argued that the two largest parties had promised to change the law only by referendum, so a non-binding vote gave parliament no mandate, and that the Constitution’s statement that human life is inviolable obliged the state to protect unborn life in the first ten weeks too. They also objected that the compulsory consultation only informed women rather than counselling them against abortion, and that the law left fathers out of the decision. On 23 February 2010 the court rejected the challenge. Five judges dissented at least in part; one wrote that a woman’s right to develop her personality could not justify leaving life in the womb unprotected for ten weeks.1 source1 source

Every termination under the law must be reported to the Directorate-General of Health (DGS). It recorded 18,014 at the woman’s request in 2008, the first full calendar year, rising to 19,921 in 2011. The number then fell for a decade, before rising again from 2022. In 2024 it was 18,079, or 97.2 per cent of all terminations.3 sources3 sources

In 2023 the median age of women having a termination by choice was 28, the median length of pregnancy was seven weeks, and most were done with medication rather than surgery. In 2024, 67.6 per cent were done in the public sector, and 7,163 were for women of other nationalities.2 sources2 sources

The DGS measures abortions per 1,000 live births to compare countries. In 2018 Portugal recorded 172 against an average of 230 for the WHO European region, and the DGS says the Portuguese rate has always been below that average.1 source1 source

The argument did not end in 2007. A citizens’ initiative “for the right to be born”, signed by about 38,000 people and backed by groups that had campaigned for no, asked for tougher rules. On 22 July 2015, at the last sitting before an election, the PSD and CDS-PP majority passed changes that made women pay the standard NHS user charge for a termination, made psychological and social counselling compulsory and let objecting doctors take part in counselling.3 sources3 sources

The majority said the aim was not to reopen decriminalisation but to improve the conditions in which a woman took “such a difficult decision in her life” (translated from Portuguese). The left called the changes a step backwards, and women’s groups called them a backlash. A new left-wing majority reversed them in a final vote on 18 December 2015.3 sources3 sources

The 2007 vote came 25 years after the first abortion bill was tabled in parliament, in 1982. The ten-week limit set in 2007 was still the rule in the DGS figures for 2024. Groups such as the APF have asked for a longer limit; opponents have asked for repeal.3 sources3 sources

It also tested how Portugal uses referendums. Neither abortion vote reached the turnout needed to bind, yet parliament followed the majority both times: it dropped its bill in 1998 and passed one in 2007. The 1998 regionalisation referendum and these two votes remain the only national referendums Portugal has held under the 1976 Constitution.4 sources4 sources