Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-16-Speech-4-005"
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"en.20040916.1.4-005"2
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"Mr President, it is well known that in Portugal the social stigma attached to women who have abortions is actively encouraged and that the political and legal apparatus is used and abused in investigations and court cases of women accused of back-street abortions. This is because of the continued existence of an unjust and disgraceful law that takes no account of social reality or of the reasons why women turn to abortion.
It is against this backdrop that we have been seeing significant acts of international solidarity towards Portuguese women, including the recent attempt by the Dutch ship belonging to the organisation ‘Women on Waves’ to enter Portuguese territorial waters. It was disgracefully refused entry by the Portuguese Government, thereby preventing debates from being held and information on sexual and reproductive rights from being provided.
This intolerance reached ridiculous proportions when the Portuguese Government sent two Navy corvettes to surround the Dutch organisation’s ship. Following declarations made at the Cairo and Beijing United Nations Conferences, Parliament, in its resolution of 3 July 2002, recommended that governments should develop high-quality national policy on sexual and reproductive health, in conjunction with pluralist civil society organisations. Ample information should be made available on effective family planning methods, with high-quality access to all forms of contraception, which does not happen in Portugal. It was also recommended that, in order to safeguard reproductive health and women’s rights, voluntary interruption of pregnancy should be legal, safe and universally accessible. Governments were called upon to avoid taking legal action, under any circumstances, against women having illegal abortions. Again, this does not happen in Portugal.
Against this backdrop, we feel that the European Commission cannot turn its back on what is happening in Portugal, on the appalling hypocrisy and violence against women, which clearly encourages back-street abortions and pushes women on the lowest incomes and those with the poorest access to information into the most dangerous activities for sexual and reproductive health. We therefore hope that the European Commission will show solidarity with Portuguese women, that it will oppose intolerance and will fall into line with positions that Parliament has already taken in this regard. In so doing, it will promote the actions needed to raise awareness of defending and promoting women’s rights and dignity."@en1
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