The coordinator of the Bloco de Esquerda (BE), Catarina Martins, said this Sunday that “there is no reason” for there not to be a law on euthanasia, because there is “a majority in Parliament to overcome a veto.”
In Póvoa de Varzim (Oporto district), after visiting the Estela fair, invited to comment on the party’s request for a veto. “very important issue” for BE and mentioned the commitment of the former coordinator João Semedo in this law.
“This topic has been debated for more than 20 years in Portugal. In Parliament we are already in the third legislature of debate. Everyone was heard, we are making a very careful law, it incorporates the best international practices and rejects the dangers that have been seen internationally. We have the best of laws and we have a majority in Parliament to overcome a veto,” said the leader of the blockers.
Catarina Martins said that “there is no reason why there is not a law [sobre a eutanásia]” and, he stressed, “above all, there is no reason why in Portugal we do not have a law with this respect for people who, at the end of their lives, are in great suffering”.
“For us it is a very important law, a law that has to do with respect for people’s lives until the end. A law that has to do with empathy, with respect for the suffering of others and with respect for the choice that each one may have. We work hard for her. João Semedo was one of its promoters and I am sure that we will finally have the João Semedo law”, he said.
The leader of Chega criticized this Thursday the “hasty and hasty” way in which the parliamentary process of euthanasia is being carried out, defending the political veto of a law that he considers almost impossible for “not to be declared unconstitutional.”
The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, granted an audience requested by André Ventura on the euthanasia process and the leader of Chega told journalists at the end of the meeting that the objective was “to give a note to the Presidency of the Republic of the way in which the parliamentary process is being carried out.
In the previous legislature, the decriminalization of medically assisted death under certain conditions, reforming the Penal Code, gathered a large parliamentary majority, but was the object of two vetoes by the President of the Republic: the first time after the Court ruled Constitutional, after a request for inspection by Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the second time that the President rejected the diploma through a political veto.
Source: Observadora
