The Portuguese are likely to vote to relax their abortion laws - the strictest in Europe - according to poll results announced last Saturday. Voters will be able to decide in a referendum on 11 February whether to de-criminalise abortions that take place within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. But the "yes" vote is ahead by only 5 per cent and more than half of voters said they were undecided or would not vote - which would invalidate the result. A study for the Portuguese Family Planning Association claims that 18,000 women had an illegal abortion in 2005.

Cardinal José Policarpo, Patriarch of Lisbon, said in November that he hoped that the debate would be serene, and has asked parish priests to abstain from talking about the referendum in their homilies but rather to communicate the value of life.

However, Manuel da Rocha Felício, the Bishop of Guarda, said in a Cathedral Mass "abortion is an abominable crime" and António Montes Moreira, the Bishop of Braganza, compared abortion to the execution of Saddam Hussein - "which horrified everybody". Several prominent lay Catholics have said they will vote "yes" on the grounds that the question is not about abortion but about it being a criminal offence in law.