Medically assisted death can only occur by euthanasia if assisted suicide is not possible due to the patient’s physical incapacity, establishes a new diploma that will be adopted on Friday in Parliament.
“Medical-assisted death can only occur by euthanasia, when medically-assisted suicide is not possible due to the patient’s physical incapacity,” establishes a new clause added to article 3 of the decree regulating the conditions under which medically-assisted death is not punishable. and to which Luza had access.
This is one of the amendments proposed by the deputies to the last resolution approved by the parliament, which was rejected by the Constitutional Court at the end of January, although not for this reason.
One of the unconstitutionalities pointed out by the Rutton Palace judges in relation to the latter ruling was the fact that the legislator “raised doubt” in the definition of “severe suffering” as to whether the requirement for physical, psychological and spiritual suffering was cumulative or alternative.
Compared to the last edict, the reference to physical, psychological, and spiritual suffering has been completely removed, keeping the terms of the rest of the definition.
In this new text, “severe suffering” is defined as “suffering caused by a serious and incurable disease or an irreversible injury of extreme severity, of great intensity, permanent, prolonged or constant, which the person himself considers intolerable.”
Article 9, relating to “implementation of the patient’s decision”, states that “the leading physician informs and explains to the patient about the methods available for the implementation of medical death, namely the self-administration of lethal drugs by the patient himself. or administration by a physician or healthcare professional duly qualified for the purpose, but under medical supervision”, adding the phrase: “when the patient is physically unable to self-administer lethal drugs”.
Since then, the phrase “the decision is the sole responsibility of the patient” has been removed.
The diploma on euthanasia will be considered by the deputies on Friday.
Euthanasia is an action that results in the death of a patient at his will, as a result of the action of a medical professional (euthanasia) or as a result of euthanasia.
In the voting statements of the judges of the Constitutional Court accompanying the decision of January 30, in which some of the provisions of the last decision were unconstitutional, some judges raised the issue of euthanasia being conditional on the impossibility of committing suicide with the help of a doctor.
For example, TC president João Kaupers defended that “euthanasia cannot be a free alternative: it must be invoked on the basis of the impossibility of assisted suicide.”
“Only in this way can the principle of proportionality be respected from the point of view of necessity,” he believes.
At the end of January, the Constitutional Court (CC) declared unconstitutional some of the provisions of the decree designed to regulate euthanasia, in response to a request from the President of the Republic for a preventive check.
At the time, the TC considered that this created an “unacceptable lack of definition of the exact scope” of the decree, concluding that, by characterizing the typology of suffering in terms of “three characteristics (physical, psychological and spiritual”) are connected by the conjunction “and”, two antagonistic interpretations of this assumption are plausible and sustainable.”
However, in the same resolution, the Customs Union recognized as constitutional the definitions contained in this resolution of “severe and incurable disease” and “final injury of extreme severity”, concepts that raised doubts in the President of the Republic.
The Assembly of the Republic will have to pass for the fourth time a law on death from medical care, a topic that has already been closed twice due to unconstitutionality found by the TC, and again due to a political veto by the President of the Republic.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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