In Portugal, the Government exerts pressure on doctors to comply with the law of abortion which allows unrestricted abortion during the first ten weeks of pregnancy. However, doctors kept in the opposite position.
Pedro Nunes, president of the Official College of Portuguese Medical, which represents about 35,000 doctors, stresses the right of doctors to conscientious objection in the case of abortion. They are not motivated by religious or ideological reason, but by the knowledge that life begins at the moment of conception.
The Government has required to doctors to retire from the code of ethics the assertion that the abortion «constitutes a serious misbehavior», under the threat of bringing them to the courts.
GABRIEL ROSELLÓ