SW News: A bid to legalize euthanasia was once again quashed by the Portuguese Constitutional Court on Monday, January 30. The legislation was returned to parliament because the wording was deemed to be "too vague."

The Court argued that the expression did not comply with the Basic Law since there was no exact definition of "suffering of great intensity" that may lead to "medically assisted death."

For more than three years, the Portuguese government has attempted to enact pro-euthanasia legislation. However, the Constitutional Court rejected this measure in March 2021 owing to its ambiguous wording. The Top Court received the case in early January, and Parliament is now free to amend the text and forward it to conservative President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

Although Portugal's president has subsequently expressed disapproval to the parliamentarians, the country's first vote in favor of legalizing euthanasia occurred in February 2020. De Sousa, a devout Catholic and former law professor, had already disapproved of an earlier draft of the plan.

A Socialist and one of the most outspoken proponents of the text, Isabel Moreira, said that the Monday decision was only a "semantic mistake" and that "the majority of the president of the Republic's explanations were not accepted." " "If it comes to amending a term, we will be there to do it," she said at a news conference sponsored by the parliament.

Many additional European nations have adopted the practice after Belgium and the Netherlands approved it in 2002. After spending a large part of the 20th century under authoritarian rule until the Carnation Revolution in 1974, Portugal, a country with a sizable Catholic population, experienced a number of liberal improvements. After legalizing abortions in 2007, same-sex marriage was approved in 2010.