On Tuesday, 7 June 2016, the Centre-Right Portuguese President, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa vetoed the law authorising surrogacy. He believes that the law does not “comply with the conditions put forward by the National Advisory Body for Ethics and Life Sciences”, “which has called for a stricter surrogacy framework”.
Voted in on 13 May 2016 (seeMAP, surrogacy: Portugal opens all of the doors), this law seeks to “off-set certain cases of infertility”, “linked, for example, to the absence or dysfunction of the uterus, without any financial compensation for the surrogate mother”.
“Stunned” and “despondent” feminine associations have already voiced their thoughts following the adoption of this law (see. Authorisation of surrogacy in Portugal: feminists react).Although the Portuguese Constitution would allow Parliament “to circumvent the presidential veto if the law were adopted by an absolute majority”, the bill which was passed by a short majority with “support from both left and right parties” will probably not materialise.
Contrastingly, on Tuesday, the Portuguese President announced a law extending medically assisted procreation (MAP) to female homosexual couples and single women”.
Le Monde 08/06/2016, Journalisme et santé publique (Jean Yves NAU) 08/06/2016