Hundreds of thousands of abortion opponents marched across Madrid yesterday to condemn government plans to allow women as young as 16 to terminate pregnancies without their parents' consent.
Organisers said they hoped more than one million people would attend the march and rally against the socialist government's move to liberalise the abortion laws in the overwhelmingly Catholic country.
"This new law is a barbarity. In this country, they protect animals more than human beings," said Jose Carlos Felicidad, 67, a retired naval technician who came to capital from the southern town of Algeciras with his wife and three grown-up children.
Organisers said 600 buses and several planes were used to bring the supporters of 42 Spanish anti-abortion and Catholic associations to the capital for the protest, which is also backed by the conservative opposition Popular Party and the Roman Catholic Church.
The protesters began the 1.5-kilometre march across central Madrid under warm sunshine in a fiesta atmosphere behind a giant banner reading 'Every life matters'.
Others carried red and white banners or flags saying 'For life, women and motherhood' and 'Women against abortion' and 'Madrid 2009, capital of life'.
Tens of thousands more gathered in the Plaza de Independencia, the final destination of the marchers, where loudspeakers blasted out pop music.
AFP journalists estimated hundreds of thousands were attending the protest.
The proposed abortion law, approved by the cabinet last month, would allow the procedure on demand for women of 16 and over up to the 14th week of pregnancy, and up to 22 weeks if there was a risk to the mother's health or if the foetus was deformed.
Women could also undergo the procedure after 22 weeks if the foetus had a serious or incurable illness.
The existing law introduced in 1985, a decade after the death of right-wing dictator Francisco Franco, only allows abortion under more limited conditions.
The proposed new legislation, which is based on laws in place in most other EU countries, is to be debated in parliament in November.
"The government takes no notice of public opinion," said Alberto, a 17-year-old student who came to Madrid for the rally by bus from the northern city of Santander. "It must justify laws that are against human life."
An opinion poll published in ABC Friday said 42 per cent of Spaniards believed there was no overwhelming popular support for the reforms, compared to 38 per cent who believed there was.
A poll released earlier this month in the centrist Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia said a narrow majority of Spaniards opposed the reforms.
The demonstration "is not just aimed at the withdrawal of the new law, the basic message is that the debate will continue as long as there is a single abortion in Spain," Benigno Blanco, the head of the Forum for the Family, one of the organisers, told the conservative newspaper ABC.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has defended the reforms, saying the state should not "intervene in the free and private decision of a woman, who is the one who has to take on the responsibility of a pregnancy during her entire life."
Zapatero has passed a series of sweeping liberal social reforms since coming to power in 2004 that have angered the Roman Catholic Church, including measures to legalise gay marriage, allow for fast-track divorces and give increased rights to transsexuals.
One pro-life group, Hazte Oir (Make Yourself Heard), said abortion opponents also planned demonstrations yesterday in front of Spanish embassies in other countries, including Italy, France, Poland, Ireland, the US, Nigeria and in several Latin American nations.