A colloquium at parliament

On Monday, 19 October 2026, the Federação Portuguesa pela Vida (FPV) held an abortion colloquium at the Assembleia da República, Portugal's parliament. Representatives of the PSD, CDS-PP and Chega attended. Former prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho gave the opening address and called for a return to measures his government had approved in 2015. Those changes introduced moderating fees for terminations and required pregnant women to consult a psychologist and a social worker before the procedure. Parliament approved them in the final days of that legislature, and the left repealed them in December 2015. Passos argued they were revoked without explanation and that the matter deserves to be discussed again.

Foreign women and rising abortion numbers

Passos based his case on data published by the Direção-Geral de Saúde (DGS) covering 2025 and earlier years. He said the number of abortions had risen significantly from 2021, the first significant increase since 2007, and that the trend continued in the following years without a clear explanation. He also highlighted the growing share of foreign women among those terminating pregnancies in Portugal, which he put at about 15.6% in 2008 and 44.2% in 2025, according to the DGS. He said that a link between the two trends is not spurious and that its causes deserve assessment.

200815.6%

202544.2%

2008

15.6 %

2025

44.2 %

Data from the article text

“There do not seem to be any data that recommend any loosening of the legal conditions for carrying out an abortion.”

Passos said he was not reopening the principle debate over whether abortion should remain decriminalised, which has been the rule since 2007. He said the aim was to assess how the current law works in practice and to suggest legislative changes that could reduce its negative effects. He also expressed interest in hearing a good explanation for why the 2015 rules were dropped months after they were introduced.

Government and PSD response

Paulo Lopes Marcelo, the PSD parliamentary group vice-chair, answered audience questions and said the government programme foresees no change to the abortion law. He recalled that Prime Minister and PSD president Luís Montenegro committed to leaving the legal framework unchanged, and that the PSD and CDS-PP programmes of the previous and current governments contain no such change. Montenegro had described abortion as a settled matter during the 2024 legislative campaign. Marcelo said the 2008 referendum approved decriminalisation rather than liberalisation or easier access. He added that the PSD has urged the DGS and the Ministry of Health to ensure pregnant women receive the information the law requires, which he said is not currently happening.

Opposition moves and the 2015 reversal

The CDS-PP presented a proposal in 2025 to return to the 2015 formula, but the PSD did not allow it to pass. During the colloquium, the moderator and members of the audience pressed the PSD on why it does not use the current parliamentary makeup to change the law in the direction Passos suggested. The speech also came after an interview in which Passos presented himself as a pre-candidate for prime minister, according to Observador.