Portugal divided ahead of abortion referendum

LISBON, Feb 11 (Reuters) Portugal holds a referendum today to decide whether to legalise abortion, an emotive issue in the overwhelmingly Catholic country where there are worries not enough people will vote to validate a decision.

Although the last polls showed almost two in three Portuguese were in favour of lifting the abortion ban, the result is not a foregone conclusion. In 1998 during a similar referendum more than half the 8.7 million electorate didn't cast their vote, and the ban stayed.

If today's vote does not overturn the ban it would mean Portugal remaining among a small group of European countries, including Ireland and Poland, that still ban abortion.

The ''yes'' campaign to legalise has focused on an estimated 23,000 clandestine abortions every year, which Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates has called ''Portugal's most shameful wound''. Legalising abortion will end such back-street abortions and allow women proper treatment, they say.

In contrast Catholic leaders have voiced concerns that a legalisation of abortion could roll back other traditional values in this Iberian country of 10 million people.

''O Virgin Mary, mother of God, do not allow these people that have always been faithful to forget you at this time,'' a Catholic priest prayed yesterday before almost 1,000 people at a Mass in Lisbon's huge Jeronimo's monastery church.

On the other side of town, along the narrow, bar-filled streets of Lisbon's trendy Bairro Alto neighbourhood, Fernanda Ribeiro, 30, celebrated with a friend the likely victory of the ''yes'' side in the referendum.

''I'm sure we will win,'' she said, drinking beer outside a bar as she expressed the views of the younger, mainly urban population that hopes for an end to the ban.

Voting starts at 0800 GMT and ends at 1900.

JAIL THREAT Under the current law, women who are caught performing abortions can go to jail for up to three years -- although most trials have ended in suspended sentences or acquittals.

Abortion is currently allowed in Portugal only in cases of rape, a deformed foetus or if the woman's health is at risk.

Those campaigning against the referendum have said a vote in favour of lifting the ban will increase the number of abortions, raise state health costs and give momentum to easing other laws such as gay marriage.

The Socialists' proposal is to allow abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy -- something which would still leave Portugal with a relatively conservative law. Other European countries that permit abortions allow them to take place much later into pregnancy.

Many Portuguese women who wish to terminate a pregnancy simply go across the border to Spain, where abortions have been allowed for more than a decade.

Portugal last held a referendum on the issue in 1998 when only 32 percent of the electorate turned out, making the result invalid. The Socialist prime minister at the time, Antonio Guterres, campaigned against.

Reuters AB VV 0853