March 19, 2023 / 11:32 a.m.
The pro-life movement mobilized yesterday in several cities in Portugal, a few days before Parliament sees a new project to legalize euthanasia, after the previous text was vetoed in February by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
The mobilization was promoted by the Portuguese Federation for Life, which in a statement prior to the march denounced that in the country “euthanasia is more discussed than the right to palliative care.”
The March for Life took place in cities such as Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Aveiro, Évora, Coimbra, Funchal and Santarém, among others.
On December 9, 2022, the Assembly of the Republic approved the law that regulates euthanasia, then it passed to President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who sent it to the Constitutional Court for consideration.
In January this year, the Court declared the law unconstitutional. In its ruling, it indicated that “intolerable uncertainty was generated as to the exact scope of application of the new law.”
As the law spoke of “physical, mental and spiritual” suffering, interconnected by the conjunction “and”, this could generate “opposite interpretations” and the three characteristics could be considered “cumulative or individually”, he stated.
walk for life
This afternoon in Lisbon. pic.twitter.com/cfBXr3zyTn— Pedro Guerreiro Cavaco (@GuerreiroCavaco) March 18, 2023
With the TC’s decision, Rebelo de Sousa vetoed the law. However, on March 15 the leaders of four parties announced that the new text on the legalization of euthanasia in Portugal will be discussed and voted in Parliament on March 31.
The new text is worked on by the Liberal Initiative, Left Bloc, People-Animals-Nature and the Socialist Party parties.