On 10 April, the president of the Portugal Republic issued the new law about abortion decriminalization, approved by the Parliament last 8 March. Aníbal Cavaco Silva accompanied the decision with a message to the Assembly of the Republic, in which he identified a series of aspects deserving further regulatory attention, and he exhorted the members of parliament “to try and secure a reasonable legislative balance among the different interests at stake”. However, according to Isilda Pegado, president of the Life Federation, “the president’s observations are totally virtual”. In fact, “if they had been seriously taken into consideration, they wouldn’t have led to the issue of the law”. The leader underlined “the disappointment of the organizations which committed themselves in the referendum campaign in favour of “no”, and which recently demonstrated against the deception of the conscience of the Portuguese through the Walk for Life on 31 March". Pegado guaranteed the movements’ support to the MPs intending to ask the Constitutional Tribunal for a further legitimacy opinion on the law. Furthermore, she announced the creation of “a Watchdog to verify to what extent the new law will take care to avoid resorting to abortion, a real scourge against life, and against the lives of the women who will have to suffer the bitterness of such solution”.
