PORTUGAL: "Yes" activist Claudia Belchior optimistic as voting on abortion referendum continues

Claudia Belchior, a "yes" activist who had an abortion when she was seventeen years old, votes in Portugal's abortion referendum and hopes for a positive change. Claudia Belchior, a yes activist, joined Portuguese voters on Sunday (February 11) on whether to legalise abortion in a referendum that could bring the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country closer into line with most other European states. This was a personal vote for her as she had an abortion at seventeen years old. Although she does not like to talk much about that moment of her life when she was young and disoriented, Claudia decided that she wanted to publicly support the "yes" vote in the Portuguese abortion referendum. "If the 'yes' wins, I hope that things will change in a very positive way, if the 'no' wins, I think that some changes must be done. Things won't remain the same but it won't be positive if the 'no' wins because the women still will be criminally prosecuted and humiliated and going into trial and I don't think that is positive at all," she said after casting her ballot in Montijo, a town across the Tagus river from Lisbon. Campaigners hoping to legalise abortion have focussed on the estimated 23,000 clandestine abortions that take place every year, something Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates has called "Portugal's most shameful wound". Under the current law women can be jailed if they abort and a few years ago a nurse who carried out abortions was sent to prison. Opinion polls showed a majority of voters in favour of making abortion legal in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. But rain swept the country, raising the possibility of a low turnout that could make the ballot invalid. Portugal is among a small group of European countries, including Ireland and Poland, that still ban most abortions. It allows pregnancies to be terminated only in cases of rape, a deformed foetus or if the woman's health is at risk. If the turnout is below 50 percent the vote will be invalid, as was the case in a similar referendum in 1998 when only 32 percent of the electorate voted. Catholic cardinal Jose Policarpo, the patriarch of Lisbon, said Sunday's vote, which ends at 1900 GMT was a "vote of conscience". The first results will come in from 2000 GMT.

ITN Source | February 12, 2007

Tags:. .allows. .yes. .positive. .minister. .carried