These days, I need some good news on abortion rights like it's my job. Back home in the United States, disingenuous doctors are lying through their teeth on TV about South Dakota's proposed abortion ban. Here in Nicaragua, the National Assembly – egged on by the Catholic and Evangelical hierarchies, the current president, and three out of four of the current presidential candidates – is on the verge of eliminating the therapeutic abortion provision from the Penal Code. Both proposed bans would condemn countless women – among them, those whores with life-threatening ectopic pregnancies, and those sluttish pre-teen survivors of rape and incest – to death. But hey, condemning women to death is just an unfortunate consequence of the culture of life. If you want to make an omelette…

Happily, rays of hope sometimes spring from the most surprising places, and I was thrilled to read last week that Portugal – one of the only countries in Europe where abortion is still illegal under most circumstances – will be holding a referendum this January that could legalize abortion up to ten weeks. Liberalizing the abortion law would be a logical step for Portugal, where (according to the Portuguese Health Ministry) 20,000 illegal abortions are performed each year, causing 5,000 women to be hospitalized for complications annually. Three cheers for Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, who requested the referendum, calling illegal backstreet abortions "a sign of a backward country." (His backward predecessor, Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, rejected a request for a similar referendum signed by 120,000 Portuguese citizens in January 2004.)

The referendum represents a major departure for Portugal, where in 2001, seventeen women were on trial for illegal abortions, and a nurse was given a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence for performing illegal abortions. You may also remember Portugal as the place where in 2004, a ship launched by the Dutch organization Women on Waves (which provides safe abortions in international waters to women living in countries with inhumane abortion laws) was chased away by warships. Who would have thought, in 2004, that Portugal might be the next country to liberalize its abortion law? There could be hope for South Dakota yet…