LISBON, Portugal (AP):

A national referendum in Portugal on whether to lift the country's ban on abortion has brought a rare confrontation between faith and politics in this conservative Roman Catholic country.

The ballot Sunday provides a litmus test of modern Portugal's changing attitudes as voters choose between sticking with their cultural traditions and joining most other European Union nations in allowing women the choice of terminating their pregnancies.

The referendum was called by the centre-left Socialist Party, which took power in a landslide almost two years ago after it promised broad reforms and national modernisation.

Prime Minister Jose Socrates, the party leader, wants Portugal to jettison what he sees as outdated attitudes. He says his country's approach to abortion is "backward" and points to 23 other EU nations where abortion is allowed.

"What we have to do now is what more developed nations did 20 or 30 years ago," Socrates said during his campaign to allow abortions up to the 10th week of pregnancy.

Portugal, where more than 90 per cent of the people say they are Catholic, currently has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the European Union, making up a minority in the bloc with Poland, Ireland and Malta.

The procedure is allowed only in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and only in cases of rape, foetal malformation or if a mother's physical well-being is in peril.

But the current law merely drives abortion underground, Socrates says. Women seeking to terminate their pregnancies travel to EU countries where it is legal, especially private clinics across the border in Spain where abortion is permitted on psychological grounds, or resort to shady, back-street clinics at home.

He quotes figures compiled by pro-choice groups - and disputed by their opponents - that around 10,000 women are hospitalised every year with complications arising from botched back-street abortions.