Abortion in Portugal was legalized on April 10, 2007, allowing the procedure to be done on-demand if a woman's pregnancy has not exceeded its tenth week. There is a three-day waiting period for abortions, with President Aníbal Cavaco Silva

Aníbal Cavaco Silva

Aníbal António Cavaco Silva, GCC , is the President of Portugal. He won the Portuguese presidential election on 22 January 2006 and was re-elected on 23 January 2011, for a second five-year term. Cavaco Silva was sworn in on 9 March 2006....

 recommending that the father also be aware of the impending abortion, and that the woman be introduced to alternatives such as adoption

Adoption

Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...

.

The law was signed into law after a February 2007 referendum

Portuguese abortion referendum, 2007

An abortion referendum took place in Portugal on February 11, 2007, to decide whether to legalise abortion up to ten weeks. The referendum was the fulfillment of an election pledge by the governing Socialist Party of Prime Minister José Sócrates....

 approved of liberalizing the abortion laws. Before April 2007, abortions were restricted to the following cases: until the twelfth week to save the life of the mother, until the sixteenth week in the case of rape, and until the twenty-fourth week in the case of fetal defects or incurable syndromes. A previous referendum in June 1998 failed to liberalize the abortion law by a slim margin.