LISBON: Portuguese lawmakers have rejected proposals to make Portugal one of only a handful of countries in the world allowing euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide.

After a landmark debate on Tuesday, lawmakers voted to reject four broadly similar bills introduced by left-leaning parties.

The bill that came closest to succeeding was the governing centre-left Socialist Party’s proposal, which lost on a 115-110 vote.

Earlier, Lisbon Cardinal Dom Manuel Clemente, head of the Catholic church in Portugal, had called on all members of parliament to vote against the legalisation of euthanasia.

The Socialist bill, which had the biggest chance of becoming law, covers patients in a situation of extreme suffering or with a fatal injury or incurable disease.

At the moment, euthanasia is not legal in Portugal, though, an ethical council has approved the halting of medical treatment in certain cases.

The head of state, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a practising Catholic, has refused to take a public stance on the euthanasia issue, but the Expresso weekly reported on Saturday that he was prepared to use his veto if euthanasia was de-penalised by only a small parliamentary majority.

Since 2015 there has been a leftist majority in the Portuguese parliament, but the Communist party had already announced that it will reject all four proposals, as had the conservative CDS-PP party.

Earlier this month, the lower house of parliament in neighbouring Spain voted in favour of examining a bill on legalising euthanasia.

Voluntary euthanasia was first legalised in Belgium and the Netherlands in 2002.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2018