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Portugese president rejects euthanasia bill for 2nd time

For the second time this year, Portugal’s president has refused to sign a bill allowing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. Doing this, he effectively shelved the piece of legislation until a new parliament and government are chosen early next year.

The first time was in Februari. Then the president sent the parliament-sanctioned bill to the Constitutional Court. He argued the legislation was ā€œexcessively impreciseā€ and potentially creating a situation of ā€œlegal uncertaintyā€. On 15 March, the Constitutional agreed with the president and overturned the law because it was ā€œimpreciseā€.

A new version was created, using the words ā€œincurableā€ or ā€œseriousā€ instead of a ā€œfatal diseaseā€ as a pre-requisite for ā€œassisted dyingā€. However, this change had made it only worse as now it is no longer requiring patients to be terminally ill. According to the president This change means ā€œa considerable change of weighing the values of life and free self-determination in the context of Portuguese society.ā€

What’s next?

By returning the bill to lawmakers, De Sousa is effectively delaying any progress until a new parliament is chosen in a snap election scheduled for Jan. 30. The assembly is set to be dissolved on Dec. 5 after division among an array of left-wing parties led late it in October to reject the minority Socialist government’s proposed budget for next year.

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