Will Portugal soon become the fifth European country to legalize euthanasia after the Netherlands in 2001, Belgium in 2002, Luxembourg in 2009 and Spain in June 2021? Nothing is obtained. Again, there is legal text framing the file “medically assisted death” It was voted by Parliament against the opposition of the Republic’s conservative and ardent Catholic President Marcelo Rebelo de Souza who decided to bring this project to the Constitutional Court, as he had done previously.
In this country of 10 million people, where 80% of the population declares themselves Catholic, the question of mercy killing Divided for many years. In 2018, Parliament vigorously rejected a bill aimed at decriminalizing euthanasia – a practice considered a crime punishable by up to eight years in prison.
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In 2020, the Socialists decide to join the radical left, environmentalists and liberals to present a joint text that launches a real barrage from the Portuguese Episcopal Conference and the Portuguese Union for Life, an influential Catholic association, which pledges to block the law with a petition that has collected more than 100,000 signatures in favor of a referendum on this matter. without success.
Parliament rejects the popular initiative. On January 29, 2021, it adopted the text of the legalization law “medically assisted death” With 136 votes in favor, 78 against and 4 abstentions, the President’s Social Democratic (center-right) party left the freedom to vote to its deputies, a few of whom joined the socialist majority on this issue.
The new law opens up euthanasia to the Portuguese Adults who ask for it on terms. The candidate must be in voluntary death “great suffering” linked b Incurable disease or l “The ultimate scourge of extreme gravity, according to scientific consensus”. In addition, the decision must be certified by a faculty of two doctors and a psychiatrist, and then approved by another doctor in the presence of witnesses at the time of the final act.
Associations you fight for “a dignified death” Then cry victory. For Portuguese bishops and anti-euthanasia bishops, the text is unacceptable. “It undermines the principle of inviolability of human life enshrined in our Basic Law.”Portuguese bishops claiming b “Constitutional control of the law”.
He asked to be heard by President Marcelo de Souza who decided to refer it to the Constitutional Court, arguing that the approved text would be used “excessively imprecise concepts”. On March 15, 2021, the ruling of the country’s highest judicial body fell: by a vote of seven to five, the judges decided to censor the project.
Overcoming the presidential hurdle
Parliament could have amended the text, but the dissolution of the House of Representatives in light of the legislative elections in January 2022 impeded the legislative process. And the new socialist majority resulting from the ballot does not give up all this. The Assembly of the Republic proposes an infinite version, which is definitively adopted on December 9th.
Will this last attempt be the right one? If the bill is deemed unconstitutional, it will be returned to parliament, which will have to redraft it. Otherwise, the head of state can still veto it. After that, it will be up to parliamentarians to vote on the text a second time to overcome the presidential hurdle and bring Portugal into the handful of European countries that have legalized euthanasia.
