LISBON, Portugal: A national referendum in Portugal on whether to lift the country's ban on abortion has brought a rare confrontation between faith and politics in this conservative Roman Catholic country.The ballot Sunday provides a litmus test of modern Portugal's changing attitudes as voters choose between sticking with their cultural traditions and joining most other European Union nations in allowing women the choice of terminating their pregnancies.
The referendum was called by the center-left Socialist Party, which took power in a landslide almost two years ago after it promised broad reforms and national modernization.
Prime Minister Jose Socrates, the party leader, wants Portugal to jettison what he sees as outdated attitudes. He says his country's approach to abortion is "backward" and points to 23 other EU nations where abortion is allowed.
"What we have to do now is what more developed nations did 20 or 30 years ago," Socrates said during his campaign to allow abortions up to the 10th week of pregnancy.
Portugal, where more than 90 percent of people say they are Catholic, currently has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the European Union, making up a minority in the bloc with Poland, Ireland and Malta.
The procedure is allowed only in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and only in cases of rape, fetal malformation or if a mother's physical well-being is in peril.
But the current law merely drives abortion underground, Socrates says. Women seeking to terminate their pregnancies travel to EU countries where it is legal, especially private clinics across the border in Spain where abortion is permitted on psychological grounds, or resort to shady, back-street clinics at home.
He quotes figures compiled by pro-choice groups — and disputed by their opponents — that around 10,000 women are hospitalized every year with complications arising from botched back-street abortions.
"That is a national disgrace," Socrates said.
The 2001 census, which includes the most recent figures for church attendance, found that around 29 percent of Portuguese say they go to church regularly, down from 26 percent a decade earlier.
But many more share the church's principles. And that has in the past discouraged governments from straying into areas perceived as touching on questions of faith.
Gay marriage is not even on the political agenda. A conservative government five years ago wanted to switch public holidays, including religious observances, to the nearest Monday or Friday. It quickly backed down when church leaders expressed their displeasure.
In 2004, the government dispatched a Navy warship to prevent a boat carrying pro-choice campaigners from the Netherlands docking in Lisbon.
"The church still exerts a huge influence here," said Andre Freire, a lecturer at Lisbon's Institute of Political and Social Sciences.
Freire compares Portugal to neighboring Spain where the Socialist government has frequently defied the church since taking office in 2004. Issues which have angered the church there include legislation facilitating gay marriages and scrapping plans to make religion an obligatory subject in schools.
The Catholic church is digging in against the proposed changes to the abortion law.
One bishop at a recent Sunday Mass described abortion as "an abominable crime." Another bishop compared it to the recent hanging of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, saying abortion was "a variation on the death sentence." A parish priest warned his flock that if they voted "Yes" they would be excommunicated.
Though there's change in the air — recent opinion polls indicate that just over 50 percent of the electorate plans to vote "Yes" — the outcome is hard to predict.
The crucial factor is likely to be turnout.
In a 1998 referendum on the same question, the Portuguese shied away from making a decision and the vote was declared void after fewer than the mandatory 50 percent-plus-one of the country's 8.9 million registered voters cast their ballot.
Women opting for illegal abortions currently risk up to three years in prison. However, no woman has ever been jailed for the offense, though doctors and nurses who assisted the procedure have.
Socrates, the prime minister, has said that if the turnout is too low to make the ballot binding but the "Yes" camp collects most of the votes cast, he will use his party's majority in Parliament to push through legislation allowing abortion.
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