The text replacing the medically assisted death bills will set minimum and maximum time limits for the process, PS deputy Isabel Moreira told Lusa this Thursday.
In addition to these deadlines, the replacement text merging the PS, Liberal Initiative, BE and PAN bills will also stipulate that the provision of psychological support to the medically assisted death applicant is mandatory, which may or may not be accepted by the same person. .
In the working group on this matter, coordinated by PS deputy Maria Antónia Almeida Santos, it has been decided to finalize this replacement text before the next 10th, which can still be amended in the relevant work.
All bills discussed dropped the “deadly disease” requirement.
The PS, BE and IL initiatives proposed euthanasia in situations of “definitive injury of extreme severity” or “serious and incurable disease”. With regard to the latter criterion, the PAN project set the requirement of “serious or incurable disease”.
In the previous legislature, the decriminalization of medically assisted death under certain conditions, amendment of the Criminal Code, gained a large majority in parliament, but was the subject of two vetoes by the President of the Republic: the first time after the Constitutional Court was overruled, following an inspection request from Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
A second time, on November 26, the president rejected the diploma via a political veto, emphasizing that the new text used different expressions in defining the type of disease needed and defending that the legislature had to choose between the ” disease only “serious”, the “serious and incurable disease” and the “incurable and fatal disease”.
In the note justifying the veto, Marcelo wrote that in the event that the Assembly of the Republic “will even choose to waive the requirement that the disease is fatal and therefore extend the authorization for medically assisted death”, she will opt for a “more radical vision” or drastic” and wondered whether this corresponds “with the dominant sentiment in Portuguese society”.
Source: DN
