Passos Coelho defends reopening discussion on abortion rules

O former Prime Minister Passos Coelho warned today to increase the number of abortions committed in Portugal by foreigners and, without returning to the subject of decriminalization, suggested to resume measures of his Government that were repealed in 2015.

Pedro Passos Coelho was today the guest speaker of the opening session of a colloquium on abortion in Portugal, promoted by the Portuguese Federation for Life (FPV), in the Assembly of the Republic.

In December 2015, the Assembly of the Republic revoked the introduction of moderating rates for the Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy (IVG) and the obligation for women to go to consultations with a psychologist and a social technician before performing it.

In his speech, the former leader of the PSD began by pointing out that the goal of the colloquium and its intervention was not to “regress to the discussion of principle about whether or not abortion should, at the woman’s request, remain depenalized, as it has been since 2007”, but to evaluate the practical application of the law.

Steps resorted to data recently published by the General Health Directorate (DGS) for 2025 and previous years to point out that since 2021, the number of cases of GVI “has increased significantly for the first time”, since 2007, a trend that has remained in the following years, without a clear explanation.

In view of these numbers, the former Prime Minister considered “there was no reason to sustain, on the contrary, any relaxation of the conditions of choice for the IBG”.

“ Finally, it is inescapable to mention the evolution of foreign women who perform abortion in Portugal, and thus contribute to the growth in the most recent years of the GVI ", said, saying that, according to the DGS, they were about 15.6% in 2008 and passed to 44.2% in 2025.

“ Certainly, we are not faced with a spurious relationship between the two circumstances, and the evaluation of what may be at the origin of this relationship will not be of minor importance ", he said.

On the other hand, he said to wait, “with some interest, a good explanation” so that the rules that his government introduced to the law in 2015 were repealed months later, by the first executive led by António Costa, without any further evaluation.

“I think this would be a good opportunity to resume this discussion and return to a path that is not incompatible with the legal framework, on the contrary, that substantially improves the legal framework by also improving the conditions of support for motherhood and paternity that the country so much needs,” he said.

In the audience, the vice-president of the PSD Paulo Marcelo, the parliamentary leader of the CDS-PP Paulo Nuncio and the deputy of the Arrival Pedro Frazão attended the discussion in the front row.