Law allowing euthanasia in Portugal moves a step closer
by The Associated Press
Last Updated Jan 29, 2021 at 10:28 am EDT
LISBON, Portugal Portugal’s parliament approved Friday the final wording of legislation allowing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill and gravely injured people.
The law now goes to the country’s president, who could try to block it.
Lawmakers voted 136-78, with four abstentions, in favour of the law that combined five right-to-die bills passed last February.
After their passage, and in accordance with parliamentary procedure, the bills went through committees where administrative procedures and other details of the euthanasia process were set out and merged into a single piece of legislation.
UPDATE 1-Portuguese parliament approves law to legalise euthanasia Reuters 1/29/2021
By Catarina Demony
LISBON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Portugal s parliament voted on Friday to legalise euthanasia, setting the country up to become the seventh in the world to allow terminally ill patients to seek assistance from a doctor to end their life. With this vote, parliament added dignity to our democracy, Left Bloc lawmaker Jose Manuel Pureza said, calling the approval by 136-78 votes with four abstentions a democratic answer to fundamentalism and fear .
The law legalises the practice in certain cases and under strict rules.
People aged over 18 will be allowed to request assistance in dying if they are terminally ill and suffering from lasting and unbearable pain - unless they are deemed not to be mentally fit to make such a decision.
3 Min Read
LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal’s parliament voted on Friday to legalise euthanasia, setting the country up to become the seventh in the world to allow terminally ill patients to seek assistance from a doctor to end their life.
“With this vote, parliament added dignity to our democracy,” Left Bloc lawmaker Jose Manuel Pureza said, calling the approval by 136-78 votes with four abstentions a “democratic answer to fundamentalism and fear”.
The law legalises the practice in certain cases and under strict rules.
People aged over 18 will be allowed to request assistance in dying if they are terminally ill and suffering from “lasting” and “unbearable” pain - unless they are deemed not to be mentally fit to make such a decision.
BBC News
Published
image captionAmbulances with Covid patients are queuing up at Lisbon s Santa Maria hospital
Portugal has tightened its coronavirus lockdown, banning all non-essential travel abroad and hiring foreign medics, as hospitals struggle and deaths reach record highs.
The country s pandemic death rate is now the highest in the EU. We really have to stop the surge under way. Now, said newly re-elected President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in a TV address to the nation.
Portugal reported a record 303 deaths and 16,432 new cases on Thursday.
Ambulances carrying Covid patients are queuing up at Portugal s hospitals.
The president, re-elected last Sunday, decreed that the state of emergency would be extended for two more weeks, until 14 February.