The law was adopted, thanks in particular to the Socialists, who have an absolute majority, for 129 votes in favor and 81 againstof the total of 230 deputies that the Portuguese chamber has.
“We confirm a law that has been voted on several times by a large majority,” said socialist deputy Isabel Moreira, one of the main promoters of the decriminalization of euthanasia.
Under the new law, people over the age of 18 will be able to apply for assistance in dying if they suffer from a terminal illness and unbearable suffering.
It would only cover those who suffer from “lasting” and “intolerable” pain, unless they are not considered mentally competent to make a decision.
It will apply to Portuguese citizens and legal residents, and not to foreigners who come to the country in search of assisted suicide.
He The issue divided this country of Catholic tradition and faced the harsh opposition of the conservative president Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.a practicing Catholic.
The bill has been approved by the Portuguese Parliament four times in the past three years, but was returned for constitutional review due to the president’s opposition.
To avoid the veto of the head of state, who now has eight days to enact the text, the Socialists decided to vote for the same bill for the second time.
Following the publication of the implementing decrees, the law could enter into force in the autumn, according to estimates cited in the local press.
– Fast approval –
Rebelo de Sousa has vetoed previous projects as having “excessively vague concepts”, and later said that the language used to describe the terminal conditions was contradictory and required clarification.
The new version of the law establishes that the euthanasia It is only permitted in cases where “physician-assisted suicide is impossible due to the physical incapacity of the patient.”
Rebelo de Sousa asked the legislators to specify who will certify if a patient is physically incapable of assisted suicide, but this time the legislators refused to modify the text.
“The adoption of this new law has been relatively fast compared to other large countries,” said Paulo Santos, a member of the organization “Right to die with dignity.”
But “The fight does not end there”he adds, because many doctors could use conscientious objection to avoid practicing euthanasia, as some do in the case of abortion, legalized in a referendum in 2007.
For their part, critics point out that the issue has not been submitted to a referendum and hope that the opposition legislators will once again ask the Constitutional Court to review the project.
“It is a whim of the deputies who did not want to listen to anyone,” claimed José Seabra Duque, a member of the Portuguese Federation for Life.
The euthanasia and assisted suicide are authorized in only a handful of European countries, including Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
