MOSCOW, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - Around a million people are estimated to have participated in an anti-abortion rally in Madrid on Saturday, Spanish media said.
Protestors were demonstrating against Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's plans to relax the Catholic country's abortion laws. The proposed new law would allow abortion on demand during the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy.
The bill would also allow girls aged 16 and 17 to have abortions without their parents' knowledge.
The Every Life Matters march was attended by Catholic bishops and opposition party members.
Current Spanish law permits abortion in cases of rape and foetal abnormality. Pregnancies can also be terminated if there is a risk to a woman's physical or psychological health. Some 100,000 abortions are currently carried out in Spain every year, most of them justified with reference to the latter provision.
