Portugal to vote on euthanasia bill

It covers situations of extreme suffering, untreatable injury or a fatal, incurable disease

After legalising abortion and same-sex marriage in recent times, Portuguese lawmakers will decide today on another issue that has brought a confrontation between faith and politics in this predominantly Catholic country: whether to allow euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide.

The outcome of the vote is uncertain and is likely to be close, but Portugal could become one of just a handful of countries in the world to permit euthanasia under certain circumstances.

Euthanasia — when a doctor kills patients at their request — is legal in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In Switzerland, and some US states, assisted suicide — where patients administer the lethal drug themselves, under medical supervision — is permitted.

A series of left-leaning governments determined to bring about what they call a “modernisation” of the country, as well as the Catholic Church’s waning influence, have opened the door to deep cultural changes in Portugal. That trend has included permitting abortion on demand in 2007 and same-sex marriage three years later.

A 2016 petition by right-todie activists pushed the contentious and divisive issue of euthanasia onto the political agenda. It got more than 8,000 signatures — more than double the amount needed to force a parliamentary debate last year.

The petition said allowing euthanasia would be “a concrete expression of an individual’s rights to autonomy, to religious freedom and freedom of conscience, which are rights enshrined in the Constitution.” It added: “It is of the utmost importance to end pointless and useless suffering, imposed by the convictions of others.”

Moral grounds

In response, a petition by the Portuguese Federation for Life a few months later collected more than 14,000 signatures and told lawmakers that society and the state have a duty to protect human life.

Now, four left-leaning political parties — the governing centre-left Socialist Party, the radical Left Bloc, the Green Party, and the People, Animals, Nature party — have tabled bills proposing euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide. Inciting or assisting euthanasia is currently punishable by up to three years in prison.

The Socialist government’s bill has the best chance of success, having the most lawmakers of the parties proposing legislation, though there is little difference between the four parties’ proposals.