LUSA
Isabel Moreira, PS deputy
Left wanted to extend the legal deadline to 12 or even 14 weeks. And did the entire PS really want to change something?
Isabel Moreira, PS deputy, also appealed: “Don’t stay in that company. We do not ask you to meet with the PS; We ask that they reunite with you.”
But the parliament rejected even, in general, all the initiatives that proposed changes to the law on voluntary termination of pregnancyleaving the legislation unchanged.
This Friday’s debate was guided by the PS which intended, among other changes, to extension of the deadline for the IVG, but all parties, with the exception of the PSD and IL, presented their own proposals.
At the end of the debate, the vote dictated, as already announced, the overturning of all bills and resolutions that were on the table.
The left-wing parties’ bills provided for a change in the legal deadline for the IVG, which is currently 10 weeks and the left-wing parties intended to extend it to 12 weeks (PS and PCP) or for 14 weeks (BE and Livre), the end of the reflection period or the densification of the law on conscientious objection.
Every time the lead for each of these projects was announced, applause was heard from the deputies on the right.
In the opposite direction were the proposals from Chega, which proposed the possibility for pregnant women to undergo an exam to see and hear the fetus’s heartbeat, and from CDS-PP, which wanted conscientious objector doctors to be able to be present at consultations prior to voluntary termination of pregnancy.
In the different votes on the seven bills and three resolutions (without the force of law) there was a division in the Liberal Initiative benchwith the eight deputies choosing between abstaining, voting against or in favor of the various diplomas. Also in the PS, there were eight deputies opting to vote in favor and not abstain like the rest of the bench, for example, on the BE bill.
“Unexcused error”
During the debate, the PSD considered a “mistake without excuse” the “division and conflict” generated by the proposed changes to the abortion law, asking the PS why it did not use its majorities to make the changes it now proposes.
Andreia Neto said: “The legislation in force is a faithful portrait of the sovereign will, which binds this assembly in a clear, unambiguous and unconditional way. Let us respect it”, he explained, recalling the result of the 2007 referendum.
Andreia Neto considered that there are questions that the Portuguese must be asking today and that need answers.
“Does the PS admit today that, having governed for eight years, it never realized that, as it says today, the law should be changed? Why didn’t he use his majorities”, he questioned, remembering the words of Luís Montenegro while still in the electoral campaign when he said that he did not intend to make any changes to this law.
At the end of the debate, the parliamentary leader of the PS, Alexandra Leitão, accused the PSD of hypocrisy by saying in favor of the right to IVG, but rejecting the proposals of the parties that “do nothing more than make this right effective”.
“The PS is where it has always been, ensuring women’s sexual and reproductive rights, guaranteeing freedom of choice and ensuring that [a IVG] it is an effective right and within the reach of everyone”, said the deputy, insisting that it is not about “an ideological position”, but rather about “enforcing respect for a won right”.
Alexandra Leitão recalled that the decriminalization of abortion was a “civilizational advance” that reduced the use of clandestine abortion and said that conscientious objection “cannot put at risk a woman’s right to IVG, as has been the case”.
Before, during the debate, Rita Matias, for He arrives, pointed out reports that allow “to conclude that there are women who are having abortions due to lack of support, due to pressure or poverty”.
The deputy focused on Chega’s draft resolution to create a social emergency fund and give priority to these women in accessing care and support, asking for its approval and a “ceasefire”, considering that it could be a “common victory” of feminists, socialists, communists, liberals, Christian Democrats and patriots, making an appeal to the latter: “we are living in demographic hell, fewer and fewer babies are being born in Portugal and it is in the birth rate that we have to invest to save the West, to save our Europe”.
And the leader to BE, Mariana Mortágua, considered that the 2007 referendum was a “complete victory” but that it is “threatened” and pointed out the limitations to access to IVG identified in the latest report from the Health Regulatory Body (ERS).
He said that these failures “prevent access to legal and safe abortion” and “put the right to health at risk and recalled that the important financial restrictions on the SUS “are also a victory for conservatism”.
Paula Santos, from PCP, recalled communist deputy Odete Santos and her fight to defend women’s rights and to combat clandestine abortion and the decriminalization of IVG.
He considered that the 2007 referendum was a “huge civilizational advance”, but recalled that the “increasing difficulties access to IVG are not inseparable from disinvestment in the SNS”.
Conversely, the deputy of CDS Paulo Núncio said that his party accepts the results of the referendums when it agrees with the majority or when it disagrees, he questioned the left-wing parties because they want to “further expand the liberalization of abortion” and considered that the proposals are “pure ideological agenda”.
Representative Isabel Mendes Lopes explained the bill for Book saying that it contemplates changes to the law to make it “better and fairer” and gave the example of the need to extend the deadline for IVG to 14 weeks, remembering that 1,366 women in 2022 were unable to resort to IVG because the legal deadline had already expired.
For the IL – which together with PSD were the only two parties that did not present projects in this debate – Mariana Leitão lamented that the IVG is not a law for all women due to the difficulties in accessing it, she said that “refusing this right is perpetuate inequalities and considered that extending the IVG deadline “is an act of justice, humanity and trust in the power of each woman to make conscious decisions”, remembering that Portugal is one of the countries with the most restrictive deadline.
Crime, common sense – what if…
In her reactions to this outcome, which was already expected, Lúcia Pestana regrets what abortion is a crime in Portugal: “The model for regulating abortion in Portugal is that of criminalization with exceptions, that is, it criminalizes the woman who has an abortion unless all those conditions are met.”
Recalling European countries where abortion is legal, the jurist and feminist writes: “In Portugal, from left to right, no proposal changes the paradigm. Every few weeks, they all criminalize women who have an abortion.”
In the same newspaper, São José Almeida that “the PSD’s common sense manages to avoid setbacks” – and also leaves a central idea: “it seemed strange” for the debate to be scheduled now by the PS, when the left does not have a majority in Parliament.
It was precisely this topic that surprised Mafalda Prata Fernandes: “There was nothing new in the votes, nor in the parties’ stances. However, what left me a little surprised, perplexed, is that all these proposals could have been approved a year ago” – when the left had a parliamentary majority, with an absolute majority from the PS Government.
On the radio, the political scientist asks why the left waited for a right-wing majority to return to this debate. And it leaves two possibilities: “Or there are people in the PS who weren’t really interested in changing the lawor is this subject being used much more as symbol of a left-right split, for the opposition to stand out from the PSD and vice versa”.
