Abortion in Portugal

[3] Despite the liberalization of the laws, as of a 2011 survey, many doctors were refusing to perform abortions – which they are allowed to do under a conscientious objection clause.

[5] Abortion was established as illegal in Sebastian of Portugal's Regimento de Quadrilheiros (1570), during the Aviz dynasty period.

[6] Another law (Decreto de Lei 17/636), in 1929, prohibited the sale, without medical prescription, and advertising of any substance that had abortion as its off-label use.

[6] After the Carnation Revolution, the Portuguese Constitution of 1976 mentioned family planning as a right (67th article), but made no reference to abortion.

[6] Multiple media cases involving abortion trials in Maia, Aveiro, Setúbal, and Lisbon, as well as a polemic surrounding the visit of a Women on Waves boat to Portugal, kept the abortion debate alive, and lead to the 2007 referendum, in which the legalization movement won.

[10] One of the civic platforms that promoted the "No" in the 2007 referendum later became a political party (initially Partido Pro-Vida, currently Cidadania e Democracia Cristã), which aims to revert the abortion law.

[11] In 2015, a petition created by a citizen's group called Direito a Nascer (Right to be Born), and signed by about 50.000 people, suggested multiple changes to the law, including the end of the medical payment exemption for abortion and the requirement that women first sign an echogram before being allowed to abort.

[12] In February 2016, the Portuguese Parliament overrode Aníbal Cavaco Silva's veto, and officially reversed a law instituting mandatory counseling and medical payments for women seeking an abortion through the public health service which had been rushed through by the previous conservative government when it was already in recess, before the elections of October 2015, and had no powers to enact any legislation.