The final text on decriminalising medically assisted death was approved on Wednesday in the committee stage and will go ahead to the final plenary vote on Friday.
The vote on the text in favour of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees was PS, IL and BE. Those against included far-right party Chega and the Portuguese Communist Party while the PSD abstained.
In the parliamentary commission, social-democratic member of parliament Paula Cardoso appealed to other members to postpone the vote for a week because an extraordinary leadership conference is scheduled to discuss the PSD’s draft resolution proposing a referendum on the matter, but it was opposed by the PS, BE and Liberal Initiative.
The text, based on the bills presented by PS, IL, BE and PAN, now goes to the final overall vote, which should take place on Friday in plenary.
The Socialist Isabel Moreira thanked the coordinator of the working group on medically assisted death, Maria Antónia de Almeida Santos, and the services of the parliament, as well as all the MPs representing the various parliamentary groups, particularly those of the PSD, for their “immaculate work.”
The Liberal Initiative MP, Patrícia Gilvaz, praised that the process had taken place in a “considered and participatory manner” in which various entities had been heard.
“In our view, this final text answers the doubts that the president of Portugal expressed in the previous process and also took into account the recommendations made by the Constitutional Court,” she said.
The text establishes that “non-punishable medically assisted death” occurs “by decision of an adult, whose will is current and reiterated, serious, free and informed, in a situation of great intensity suffering, with definitive injury of extreme gravity or serious and incurable disease, when performed or assisted by health professionals.”
Compared to the last decree, the replacement text drops the “fatal illness” requirement this time.
The final text now establishes a minimum period of two months from the beginning of the procedure and mandates psychological assessment.
In the previous legislature, the decriminalisation, under certain conditions, of medically assisted death, amending the Penal Code, gathered a large majority in parliament but was the subject of two vetoes by the president of Portugal for the first time after the rejection by the Constitutional Court, following a request for review by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
(Ana Raquel Lopes | Lusa.pt)
Source: euractiv.com
