Portugal tackles end-of-life issues

Medically assisted suicide has moved a significant step closer to becoming legal in Portugal, after the country's Parliament approved legislation to permit it in limited circumstances.

Members of Parliament voted in favor of the legislation by a margin of 126 to 84, with all but seven members of the chamber's majority Socialist Party backing the bill permitting suicide in the case of an adult whose wish to die is "current and reiterated, serious, free and informed".

The legislation also said they must be "in a situation of great intensity suffering".

Although the legislation has been approved, that does not mean it will automatically become law, as there is still the possibility of a review if the country's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa chooses to do so, as he did with previous attempts to pass legislation relating to the issue in January 2021 and then again in November 2021, querying the details of some of the terminology used.

After that second blocking, he called a snap general election this January, which saw the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Antonio Costa win 120 of the 230 seats available, with other left-wing parties that back the legislation winning seven seats.

Once the final text is sent to the president, his options are to sign it and make it law, send it to the Constitutional Court within eight days, or he has 20 days to exercise his veto, which could, however, be overturned by a parliamentary majority.

After the legislation was passed, Rebelo de Sousa indicated he would be quick to make his decision on what the next step would be.

Euthanasia is fully legal in Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, with other European countries allowing various forms of assisted death or passive euthanasia.

Although Portugal is a secular country, a large portion of its population still identifies as Catholic, and the church strongly opposes the legislation, which has proved divisive across wider society.

The BBC reported that around half of voters in Portugal approve of medically assisted suicide, but the country's Bishops' Conference has called it a "serious threat to humanity".

Addressing Parliament, Catarina Martins, leader of the Left Bloc, hit back, saying: "Our free and serene decision cannot be conditioned by desperate campaigns of those who insist on not accepting that the decriminalization of medically assisted death is the will of the vast majority of the country."