Slovenians reject law on assisted dying in referendum
The law on medically assisted suicide was highly controversial in the EU country, a massive mobilisation against it by right-wing and church circles mobilised. They can be satisfied with the outcome, albeit a narrow one. The subject is now off the table for at least a year.
Ljublana (AP/dpa) - Slovenians on Sunday rejected in a referendum a law that allowed terminally ill patients to end their lives, according to preliminary results released by the election authorities.
The near-complete count showed that around 53 per cent voted against the law while around 46 per cent supported it. Turnout was nearly 41 per cent, the State Electoral Commission said.
With 21.8 per cent of all eligible voters voting no to the law, the referendum result was narrowly valid – in Slovenia, a referendum is valid if at least 20 per cent of all eligible voters vote either yes or no. Sunday's referendum was binding. The law on assisted suicide will therefore not come into force. The legislature can try again to pass legislation on the same subject in a year at the earliest.
Fierce resistance
The law met with fierce resistance from the right-wing opposition and the Catholic Church. “Compassion has won,” declared Ales Primc, a conservative activist who led the campaign against assisted dying. “Slovenia has rejected the government’s health, pension and social reform based on death by poisoning."
Parliament in the small European Union nation passed the law in July after voters had backed it in a nonbinding referendum last year. Primc and other opponents, however, have forced another vote on the divisive issue after collecting more than 40,000 signatures.
Primc, who initiated the referendum, had led the campaign against the law with the questionable argument that the Golob government wanted to get rid of the elderly and seriously ill in the country with the euthanasia law. Supporters of the now rejected law were disappointed. ‘We will get such a solution sooner or later, but it is a shame that it has now been held up,’ said Tereza Novak, a member of parliament from Golob's liberal Freedom Movement. The outcome of the referendum is a setback, especially for people who would now be dependent on this law, she added.
Prime Minister: "Challenge remains"
Prime Minister Robert Golob said in a press release that while the current bill was rejected the “challenge we are addressing still remains.”
“This is not a political issue, it has always been a matter of dignity, human rights, and individual choice,” he added.
The law envisaged that mentally competent people, who have no chance of recovery or are facing unbearable pain have the right to assisted dying. This meant that patients would administer the lethal medication themselves after approval from two doctors and a period of consultation. The law did not apply to people with mental illnesses.
President Natasa Pirc Musar said upon voting on Sunday that it is “extremely important” for the citizens to go to the polls and “not only when there are parliamentary or presidential elections.”
“It is right for us as individuals to say what we think about a certain topic,” she said. “It is right for us to tell politicians what we think is right and what we think is wrong.”