Tens of thousands of people have joined a protest march in the Spanish capital Madrid to oppose government plans to liberalise the country's abortion law.
Organisers said they hoped more than one million people would attend the rally, from all over the country.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero wants to introduce abortion on demand.
At present, a pregnancy can only be terminated in mainly Catholic Spain under specific circumstances.
It is the latest in a series of ethical issues which have pitted the Catholic right against the Socialist government, which has legalised gay marriage and made divorce easier.
'Rights and Respect'
Saturday's march, called Every Life Matters, brings together more than 40 religious and civil society groups.
They are demanding that the government withdraw the draft law currently in the parliament, which would introduce abortion on demand within the first 14 weeks of a pregnancy.
It would also permit girls aged 16 and 17 to have an abortion without their parents' knowledge.
"This new law is a barbarity," said one protester, Jose Carlos Felicidad, from the southern town of Algeciras.
"In this country, they protect animals more than human beings," he told AFP news agency.
Spain's existing law, dating from 1985, allows abortion in cases of rape, and when there are signs of foetal abnormality.
Spanish women can also end a pregnancy if their physical or psychological health is at risk. In practice, the last category has been used to justify the vast majority of abortions - of which there were 112,000 in 2007.
The government says the new law is about respect and rights for women, and that anyone wanting to terminate a pregnancy will first be explained the alternatives - including state help for young mothers.
It also claims its proposal will make abortion safer - by ensuring the procedure does not happen beyond 22 weeks of a pregnancy.
The BBC's Steve Kingstone in Madrid says that in recent years shocking cases have emerged in which doctors performed abortions on women eight months pregnant, with the justification that their mental health was under threat.
Source: BBC/Europe
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