Portugal decriminalizes euthanasia

The Portuguese Parliament voted Friday, May 12 the final version of a law decriminalizing euthanasia, after a laborious legislative process. Portugal will now be on the list of the few countries allowing a person with an incurable disease to end their suffering. The law was adopted thanks, in particular, to the Socialists who have an absolute majority: 129 deputies voted for and 81 against, out of the 230 members of the Assembly.

“We confirm a law that has been passed several times by a very large majority”, welcomed the socialist deputy Isabel Moreira, one of the main voices in favor of the decriminalization of euthanasia. After the publication of the implementing decrees, the law could come into force in the fall, according to estimates quoted by the local press.

A parliamentary majority led by the ruling Socialist Party had already voted four times in favor of the decriminalization of assisted death over the past three years. But the text then came up against the reservations of the Constitutional Court and the president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a conservative and fervent Catholic.

In order to overcome the last veto of the Head of State, who now has eight days to promulgate the law, the Socialists had decided to vote for the same text a second time. The text of the law has been reformulated several times in order to take into account the remarks of the President, who vetoed it twice, and after having been challenged, also twice, by the Constitutional Court, in particular because of“inaccuracies”.

The new version of the law now provides that euthanasia is only authorized in cases where “medically assisted suicide is impossible due to the patient’s physical incapacity”. To defend his latest veto, Mr Rebelo de Sousa asked MEPs to specify who was empowered to “to attest” of this impossibility. But the parliamentarians this time refused to modify the text.

The questions raised by the Head of State can be clarified “in the decrees of application of the law”, said Catarina Martins, the leader of the Left Bloc (BE, far left). If the law is confirmed by Parliament, “It’s not a tragedy”had conceded Mr. Rebelo de Sousa, considering that it did not raise “no constitutional problems”.

“The fight does not end there”

Both for the defenders and for the detractors of this law, the vote of the Parliament will not put an end to the public debate on this divisive subject in a country with a strong Catholic tradition. “The adoption of this law was relatively quick compared to other major countries”welcomed Paulo Santos, member of the Movement for the right to die with dignity.

But “The fight does not end there” because, he notes, many doctors risk invoking a conscientious objection not to practice euthanasia, as some do with abortion, legalized in 2007 by referendum. “It is to be expected that euthanasia will provoke even more resistance”he told Agence France-Presse.

For their part, the opponents of the decriminalization of euthanasia regret that the question was not the subject of a referendum and hope that the Constitutional Court will be seized again by opposition parliamentarians. “It is a whim of the deputies who did not want to listen to anyone”argued José Seabra Duque, member of the Portuguese Federation for Life.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are now authorized in a handful of European countries, such as those of Benelux, the first to have authorized them, and neighboring Spain.