MADRID: Spain’s parliament voted Thursday to approve a bill that will allow physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia for long-suffering patients of incurable diseases or unbearable permanent conditions.

The bill, which was backed by the left-wing coalition government and several other parties, passed in a 198-138 vote. The conservative Popular Party and the far-right Vox party voted `No’.

The bill will now continue its legislative journey, facing a vote in the Senate where it is also expected to pass. According to the draft of the law approved by the lower house, it won’t go into effect until three months after being published in the government gazette.

As a society, we cannot remain impassive when faced with the intolerable pain that many people suffer, Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa told lawmakers.

Spain is following the footsteps of Iberian Peninsula neighbor Portugal, whose parliament approved similar bills to legalize physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia in February. Those bills have yet to become law and could yet face resistance from Portugals president.

Euthanasia when a doctor directly administers fatal drugs to a patient is legal in Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In some US states, medically-assisted suicide where patients administer the lethal drug themselves, under medical supervision is permitted.

A small group of people gathered outside Madrid’s lower house of parliament waving black flags with skulls and crossbones to protest the bill. Groups that support legislation to legalise medically assisted suicide planned rallies in cities across the country to celebrate the passing of the bill.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2020