Pregnancy Grief? Free, BE and PAN Accuse Government of Attacking Families

At issue is the revocation, proposed by the Government in the preliminary draft of labor reform announced this Thursday, of the regime of absence due to gestational bereavement, currently three days without loss of rights , adding to the leave due to interruption of pregnancy the regime of absences for family assistance.

Speaking to journalists after signing a pre-election agreement with BE and PAN for the local elections in Loures, Livre's spokesperson, Rui Tavares, accused the Government of proposing a "reversal" of what was a "great societal advance" .

The reversal "excludes people. [They were] three days that had an important function from the point of view of recognizing in public policies the pain of someone going through a situation of gestational grief, mother and father. Ending this is, in itself, serious," he criticized.

The Livre spokesperson also addressed the government's social media posts on this matter, accusing the government of "trying to lie about its own policies" and replacing the work of journalists by creating "fake fact-checking pages."

“Instead of clarifying, of backing down when they recognize that it is wrong, what they do is double down on a policy that is wrong and still try to confuse the electorate by saying: 'no, this has not disappeared, it is still here, just with another name or in another form,'” he said.

In turn, PAN spokesperson Inês Sousa Real stressed that it was her party that, in 2023, proposed enshrining in law the three-day absence for gestational mourning, up to 20 weeks of pregnancy, and considered it “absurd and incoherent” that the Government “confuses, in its prejudice and ideological blindness, the right of women to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG) with the right of a father and a mother to grieve for having lost a child” .

“In fact, the Government should be ashamed, there is no other word to use, of having mothers who are losing their children on the way to the hospital (…) and not recognizing their right to mourn and suffer,” he said.

For Inês Sousa Real, what should be discussed at this moment is the extension of gestational mourning to 20 days, equating it to the duration of parental mourning, because “the pain of losing a child cannot be contained in three days, sometimes it lasts a lifetime” .

"This just goes to show that this government is once again putting under attack not only women's rights, but our right as a society to mourn a loss of this nature ," he said, calling the proposal "absolutely unworthy."

The PAN spokesperson assured that, when the Assembly of the Republic resumes work on September 17, her party will request a hearing with the Minister of Labor to "provide clarifications, because it owes an explanation to all women, to all families who have lost their children and who have the right to mourn."

BE leader and former parliamentary leader Fabian Figueiredo accused Prime Minister Luís Montenegro of being in “politics in a cruel way” .

"This is cruel and requires a civic shock. Losing a child is a tremendous pain. For us, in 2025, to discuss ending the right to gestational mourning is immensely cruel and must be stopped," he said.

Fabian Figueiredo called on “everyone on social media, in conversations with their neighbors” or through open letters, to “express their displeasure” against this measure .

" Portugal is a country of courageous, hard-working people and deserves policies to match . We will not allow it, and we will build all the bridges necessary to prevent this cruelty from becoming law," he assured.