Euthanasia set to be legal in Portugal

Religious and human rights groups in Portugal are vowing to resist new legislation that allows euthanasia for some people with terminal illnesses.

The legislation, which Parliament approved on Friday after a lengthy process and much opposition in the nation of 10.3 million, legalizes euthanasia for people with incurable diseases who are in severe and prolonged pain.

The Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias said people will also need to demand their lives be ended, and be considered mentally competent to make such a decision.

Many people in the strongly Roman Catholic nation strongly disapprove of suicide, which their religion regards as a sin, and the country's devoutly religious president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, was among the legislation's prominent opponents.

Lawmakers have approved the bill four times during the past three years, but, each time, the president has blocked it. This time, after Parliament approved a "definitive version", lawmakers said they will not respect any form of presidential veto.

Isabel Moreira, a socialist lawmaker and strong supporter of the legislation, said after the law passed by 129 votes to 81 that its adoption will now be unstoppable.

"We are confirming a law that has already been approved several times by a huge majority," she told the Agence France-Presse, or AFP, news agency. "We have at last come to the end of a long battle … The time has come for the majority of the Parliament to be respected."

Rebelo de Sousa had earlier tried to stall the latest version of the bill by asking Parliament to first include in it a definition of who should be allowed to say whether or not a patient has the capacity to participate in assisted suicide and who, therefore, would not be eligible for euthanasia, but Parliament treated it as a delaying tactic and refused to amend the bill for a fifth time. The president now has one week to put the new law into effect.

The law will allow people to request doctors take their life in cases where they are terminally ill, in extreme pain, mentally competent, and when "medically assisted suicide is impossible, due to a physical disability of the patient".

The right to euthanasia will only extend to Portuguese citizens and to people who are legally resident in the country, blocking the prospect of people traveling to the country to avail themselves of the service.

Paulo Santos, a member of the pro-euthanasia group Right To Die With Dignity, told AFP: "The adoption of this law has been relatively fast, compared with other big countries."

But, he said, despite lawmakers approving the law, doctors could now refuse to participate in euthanasia, as many did with abortions after they were legalized in 2007.

"There's a good chance euthanasia will lead to even stronger resistance," he told AFP.

Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic church, said he was "very sad" that "a law to kill has been enacted".

The new law, which should come into force by the fall, means Portugal joins Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain as European nations that have legalized euthanasia. Elsewhere, it is permitted in nations including Australia, Canada, Colombia, and New Zealand.