The President of Portugal gives a new opportunity to the citizens of Portugal by vetoing the euthanasia law for the second time

The president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, has vetoed the law that decriminalized euthanasia and asked Parliament to clarify the reasons why medically assisted death can be accessed.

In a statement published on the official website of the Presidency, Rebelo de Sousa communicated that he returned to Parliament, without promulgating, the euthanasia law, so the matter will have to be taken up again in the next legislature, since the Chamber will be dissolved at the end This week.

The president had already blocked a previous version of the law by sending it to the Constitutional Court for review and the judges ended up vetoing it, considering that some concepts were “imprecise.”

Parliament approved a new version of the document on November 5, but the head of state has not promulgated it either.

Rebelo de Sousa asked the House this time to clarify two issues.

On the one hand, he refers to the clarification of “what appear to be contradictions” in the text on the causes for which euthanasia can be resorted to.

The president points out that in one part of the text it is required that there be a “fatal disease”, as was already included in the first version of the law, but in others he adds, in this new version, that it can also be applied in cases of ” incurable disease “, even if not fatal, and” serious disease “.

“The president asks that the Assembly of the Republic clarify if a ‘fatal disease’ is required, if only ‘incurable’ or only ‘serious,” the statement said.

On the other hand, Rebelo de Sousa defends that ceasing to demand that there be a “fatal disease” supposes a “considerable change in the weighting of the values of life and free self-determination”, for which he asks Parliament to reconsider this alteration between the two versions of the standard.

The new euthanasia law was approved with the votes in favor of a large part of the deputies of the Socialist Party (7 voted against), the Bloco de Esquerda, the animalist PAN, Los Verdes (PEV) and the Liberal Initiative, as well as well as 13 parliamentarians from the PSD (center-right) and two unregistered deputies.