With the departure of the CDS from Parliament, Chega became the only party that has a position against the legalization of abortion, although not all leaders are aligned on this issue. The return of the subject to public debate, specifically due to the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States left open the possibility of revoking the protection of right to abortioncan open the door to a new discussion in Portugal.

The Portuguese Federation for Life welcomes the return of space to talk about a topic that it considers “No pacified” and has no qualms about bringing it up for discussion, although, according to Isilda Pegado, lawyer and president of the association, there is a path that can be taken without messing with the law.

André Ventura revealed to the Observer that Chega “does not intend resume discussion and the legislative initiative in the current legislature”, taking into account that the issue is not on the table or for the table or for the National Council, which rules out the possibility that the issue reaches Parliament.

But not all Chega leaders see the issue in the same way. In an interview with Observador, Diogo Pacheco Amorim admitted having seen “with all the pleasure” that the subject has been discussed again in the United States and that it can be discussed again in Portugal.

Asked if the party can retake that flag, Chega’s ideologue recalls that the party “has a clear programmatic position: life is inviolable from the moment of conception until the moment of death” and did not close the door to the possibility : “At the time we deem convenient, we will be in that battle”.

What’s on the program with Chega

In the first chapter of the Chega program, in which the moral matrix of the party is addressed, the second point contains the issue of abortion, despite the fact that the word does not appear even once during the entire program, nor does the concept of interruption pregnancy volunteer.

“Basta defends, in constitutional terms, the inviolability of human life in all its phases and dimensions, with all the resulting legal consequences. The concise phrase reflects the idea that human life is inviolable from conception to death, exactly the same idea espoused by pro-life movements.

In the National Council of Chega, in Sagres, where the party’s program was widely discussed, the issue of abortion was on the table because there were those who considered that the idea of ​​”inviolability of human life” was enough to resolve the position. about abortion. , but there was the opposite opinion.

It was the president of the party himself who proposed the formulation that won consensus (and that remained on the program), by adding to the “inviolability of human life” the idea that it must be guaranteed “in all its phases and dimensions with all the consequences”, the resulting legal provisions”. With this version, the “proposal for criminalization” that came to be on the table and the idea was only implicit.

However, the Chega program with which André Ventura was elected deputy in 2019 had a proposal that involved abortion. The intention was to remove the concept of public health from this method, which would imply “the immediate end of support and subsidies from the State both for abortion and for sex reassignment through the National Health Service, that is, at the expense of the taxpayer”. The initiative never saw the light of day and was no longer on the program for the 2022 legislative elections.

Abortion in various voices in Chega

Chega never hid the fact that there are different ways of seeing the issue of abortion within the party itself, with people with more conservative views —such as Rita Matias or Pedro dos Santos Frazão— and other leaders not so much.

André Ventura is one of those more moderate faces and, despite having already admitted that he is not “ethically in favor of abortion”, he says that he cannot allow that in Portugal “there is a criminal proceeding against a woman who has had an abortion” .

The Chega leader was clear when he said, from the outset, that he would not ask for a revision of the abortion law because he does not want to criminalize those who practice it and, in the years that he was the sole deputy, no initiative was raised. taken for this purpose.

The leader and deputy of Chega, Rita Matias, is one of the voices that has focused her speech, on several occasions and in various party events, on defending the value of life, the idea of ​​the traditional family and the condemnation of abortion. and euthanasia.

“We cannot be the country that finance abortionbut that it cannot allocate part of its budget to financing families so that they do not want to resort to this false solution”, said Rita Matias at the 2nd Chega Convention, while in another party event she suggested that there are women who suffer “psychological violence” and who are “forced to abort if they have a child with Down Syndrome in the womb”.

Pedro Santos Frazão is another of the Chega leaders who has already come out against abortion and who, in statements to the Observer, admitted that he agrees with the idea assumed by Diogo Pacheco Amorim. “It is also the position of the political matrix of the party, that of defending life from conception to natural death,” he said.

Diogo Pacheco Amorim’s position is followed by other Chega leaders who, after being heard by the Observer, admit that they would like to see the issue discussed in Portugal and that this would be a good way forward.

However, there are those who think exactly the opposite: that this is not the time to discuss the issue again and that the fight must be carried out in other ways, that is, with the work of “defense of life and initiatives that promote family, support for the birth rate and the increase in crimes by rapists”. “Introducing the topic now will only divert attention,” said one of the Chega sources heard by the Observer.

Euthanasia, the other topic that Chega does not forget

Unlike the issue of abortion – in which André Ventura’s party seems only in Parliament — Chega voted for euthanasia along with the PCP, 63 PSD deputies (including parliamentary leader Paulo Mota Pinto, and leaders such as José Silvano and Ricardo Batista Leite) and seven PS deputies (Joaquim Barreto, Romualda Fernandes, Raquel Ferreira , Cristina Sousa, Pedro Cegonho, Maria João Castro, Sobrinho Teixeira).

Chega wanted to go further, he did not want to let the moment pass and he also presented a proposal for a referendum. despite being leadPredictably, the proposal obtained 77 votes in favor and two abstentions, with the majority of the Social Democratic deputies rising along with André Ventura’s bench.

The film of the legalization of euthanasia in four acts

The question of the “unpacified”

Isilda Pegado, from the Portuguese Federation for Life, considers that this is not a closed issue, that it is an “issue that has not been pacified” and that it is on the agenda of various institutions. For the lawyer, it is an issue that “can be revived”.

The official believes that there are women”forced” abortion due to lack of economic or social conditions or pressure from employers and that “the offer is to end the life of the child”.

In addition to emphasizing that an assessment of how abortion has been in Portugal should be made, Isilda Pegado believes that society is not reassured by this option and that the number of civic movements on the subject show this discomfort. More than that, she targets young people, who she says are “Very interested about the topic”.

The Portuguese Federation for Life received Chega, at the request of the party, in the context of euthanasia, but Isilda Pegado admits that “it is indifferent“Let the party led by André Ventura or any other bring up the issue.

In the eyes of those responsible, the reform of the law”not the first I will give”, but the need to create mechanisms and policies to support motherhood, pregnancy and discourage abortion.

The discussion in the US that revived the issue

In 1973, the United States made the historic decision to recognize the constitutional right to abortion. Now, almost 50 years later, the Supreme Court is preparing to overturn the decision.

The document in question, written by conservative judge Samuel Alito, was released by the newspaper Politico and revealed that the Roe v. Wade, who held nearly half a century ago that the US Constitution protected a woman’s right to an abortion, was “totally without merit from the start.”

The idea that this law should be “repealed” is being analyzed and negotiated in the Supreme Court, and if that happens, America goes back to what it was before 1973, when every state was free to ban or authorize abortions.

Spain goes in the opposite direction

In Spain, a set of measures was approved that includes abortion from the age of 16 without parental consent.

The bill follows a series of measures that the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, proposed at the end of February. Regarding abortion, the minister stressed that “the voluntary interruption of pregnancy will be guaranteed in all public hospitals.”

“IT IS essential that all clinical centers with gynecology and obstetrics services have professionals who guarantee the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, also respecting the right to conscientious objection”, assured the minister.

The measure was taken at the same time that Spain became the first European country to have a menstrual drop, similar to what is already happening in countries like South Korea and Japan. In this country, it is estimated that a third of women experience severe pain during menstruation and the figure is even higher if premenstrual pain is taken into account.

The judge with controversial positions on abortion

The issue of abortion was once again a topical issue in Portugal when, in recent weeks, some of the positions of António Almeida Costa became known, who ended up failing in the candidacy for the new judge of the Constitutional Court.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the jurist rejected the legalization of the interruption of pregnancy -in any circumstance-, arguing that there was “medical investigations” which would allow us to conclude that women who were “raped rarely get pregnant”, since “experience shows that, many times, the rapist himself is sterile due to other sexually aberrant behavior”.

The information, which appeared in an American study, was based on experiences carried out in Nazi concentration camps and led the university professor to mention that the theories eliminated, “from the outset, the ethical or criminological indication as a basis for the legalization of abortion.”

The right will block new judges for the Constitutional Court until 2023

The name of the jurist ended up being ruled on five times, always with the same vote: six in favor, four against, confirmed by the judges by secret ballot. António Almeida Costa was a candidate to take the place of Pedro Machete as advisory judge of the Constitutional Court and would need seven of the ten votes of the magistrates elected by the Assembly of the Republic to be elected.

Despite this clue, it is known that there have always been conservative judges in the Constitutional Court who were against the practice of voluntary interruption of pregnancy and who find room in the Constitution to justify the option.