Portuguese Prime Minister José Socrates said yesterday he would ask parliament to vote to lift a ban on abortion despite a referendum on the issue looking likely to fail due to low voter turnout.

"The law will now be discussed and approved in Parliament. Our interest is to fight clandestine abortion and we have to produce a law that respects the result of the referendum,"Prime Minister Socrates said in a televised speech.

"The people spoke with a clear voice," said Mr Socrates, whose Socialists have a majority in Parliament.

RTP television channel and the Catholic University showed in an exit poll at least 56 per cent of voters failed to turn out. Of those who voted, at least 57 per cent wanted to lift the abortion ban in the traditionally Catholic country.

Portugal is among a small group of European countries, including Ireland and Poland, that still ban most abortions. At present it allows pregnancies to be terminated only in cases of rape, a deformed foetus or if the woman's health is at risk.

Devout Catholics at the Sanctuary of Fatima north of Lisbon, where the Virgin Mary was reported to have appeared six times to three shepherd children in 1917, prayed for the unborn child. "Born by God's will," read large posters with pictures of babies in front of the shrine.

"We voted for life, which is our duty," said a nun as she left a polling booth near Fatima.