The president of the republic holds the veil over what he will do when the diploma for the decriminalization of medically assisted death, approved last Friday, arrives in Belém. Yesterday, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa added a little more confusion to those trying to guess whether it will pass, re-vote a political veto, or send it back for consideration by the Constitutional Court, when he told journalists that he will submit the decision to the ” maturing” is with the various contributions that come to him from the society.
“I am not exactly locked in a bubble, in a capsule, outside the world, unaware of what very different sectors of Portuguese society, both in this and other laws, say about the best solution for a law that moment of leaving parliament,” said Marcelo.
Among the many inputs that reached him in Belém, those of the party he led, the PSD, must also echo. Starting with that of former Prime Minister and former party chairman Pedro Passos Coelho who, in an op-ed published in The Observer, on the eve of the passage of the law in parliament, called on parties opposed to decriminalization of assisted death to commit to to transparently undo the law in the future if they have a majority in parliament.
“It would be good to know that in the near future there will be those who will not conform or give up, and will put on the table the reversal of the decision that Parliament is preparing to take, as in a mature democracy,” wrote he. . Whenever the debate got stuck, Passos wanted to intervene. In 2018, he believed that the use of euthanasia could symbolize “a resignation and a lack of responsibility on the part of society to help those who suffer”. And in 2020 he rebelled against the “lightness” with which the left wanted to legislate on this subject. Marcelo eventually vetoed this law that came out of parliament in 2021.
Now, in 2022, Passos again takes a clear and unequivocal stand against the decriminalization of euthanasia and indirectly appeals to his party leadership to clarify thinking on the matter, without ever mentioning the PSD or the name of Luis Montenegro.
The current Social Democratic leader only admitted his “tendency” against the decriminalization of medically assisted death when he championed a referendum on the issue, even on top of the emergence of the new diploma to a plenary vote. On the contrary, he wanted to express his disagreement with the position of Passos Coelho: “I do not agree with Dr. Pedro Passos Coelho. I am very straightforward. I completely disagree with the position of Dr. Pedro Passos Coelho . [sobre a eutanásia]🇧🇷 I disagree that he disagrees with holding a referendum on this issue. I disagree, because his position is very closed. Although I’m usually against it, I don’t have such a closed position as he does”.
PSD to regroup electorate
Political scientist José Adelino Maltez considers this case “complex” for the PSD, which “most likely doesn’t even know what the position of its voters is at the moment”. Therefore, he sees in the “maneuver” of the referendum a way to regroup this “lost electorate”.
“We are dealing with a measure that is the 5th in Europe [Holanda, Bélgica, Suíça e Luxemburgo] and the 9th in the world. It is a measure little tried by the people and Parliament took the position of groping and ahead of its time,” emphasizes the political scientist about the complexity of this solution, which refers to “the conscience of every citizen”. socially accepted by society.” “If there is medically assisted suicide, no one will denounce it,” he insists. But the political assumption is more complex and so is a referendum. “We will discuss it from the black [os que são contra] and the white [os que são a favor] and this is a matter full of nuances and it cannot be discussed honestly like that”. in euthanasia everything is more diffuse”, he underlines.
The political scientist makes no predictions about what Marcelo will or will not decide, not least because even by vetoing the diploma again, as in 2021, Parliament will have a majority to reaffirm it.
Cavaco against, Rio for
Who also never agreed to the possibility of decriminalizing euthanasia was the also former PSD leader and former president of the republic, Aníbal Cavaco Silva.
In November he came to the scene to consider that the legalization of euthanasia “does not respect the spirit of the Constitution” and that the decriminalization of this practice “is yet another sign of the deterioration of the quality of our democracy”.
“In a country like Portugal, with one of the highest risks of poverty and social exclusion in the European Union and without a network of palliative care to which patients from disadvantaged families have access, in a Portugal where impoverishment is greater than in other countries, the deputies’ priority is the legalization of the practice of euthanasia, authorizing a doctor to kill another person,” he said in a statement to Rádio Renascença.
Cavaco Silva also warned that “legally authorizing a doctor to kill someone else is an extremely dangerous leap into the unknown”, stating: “There have been reported cases in some European countries of pressure on the elderly and the sick to accept that they are killed. and the sick are the most vulnerable”.
The PSD leader who deviated most from these views in his party was Rui Rio, who not only signed a manifesto for the decriminalization of euthanasia at the last minute, but also voted for it in parliament in 2021,” defends the former PSD -chair. This is “brutality and cruelty,” he said in 2016.
Last Friday, the Assembly of the Republic approved for the third time the decriminalization of medically assisted death, with votes from the majority of the PS, IL, BE and some deputies from the PAN and Livre as well as six MPs from the PSD. They voted against Chega, the PCP and the majority of the Social Democratic bank, as well as six PS deputies.
Source: DN
