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Spain legalizes euthanasia and assisted suicide and becomes the seventh country in the world to do so

2021-03-18T13:01:34.345Z


The law allows anyone with a 'serious or incurable' illness to apply for help to die. 03/18/2021 9:32 AM Clarín.com World Updated 03/18/2021 9:46 AM The Spanish Parliament definitively approved this Thursday the law that decriminalizes euthanasia, which makes the country one of the few that will allow an incurable patient to receive help to die and avoid suffering. In total, seven countries have legalized assisted suicide: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Canada, New Z


03/18/2021 9:32 AM

  • Clarín.com

  • World

Updated 03/18/2021 9:46 AM

The Spanish Parliament definitively approved this Thursday the

law that decriminalizes

euthanasia, which makes the country one of the few that will allow an incurable patient to receive help to die and avoid suffering.

In total, seven countries have legalized assisted suicide: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Canada, New Zealand and Colombia.

Priority for the left-wing government of Pedro Sánchez, the legislation received the green light in the Congress of Deputies with

202 votes in favor

, from the left, center and regionalists, 141 against, from the right and the extreme right, and two abstentions.

Immediately afterwards,

the applause echoed in the lower house

for several minutes.

A woman with a poster protests the measure taken by the Spanish Parliament.

Photo: REUTER

"It is an important day for those people who are in a situation of serious suffering and it is also important for their families," congratulated the Minister of Health, the socialist Carolina Darias, moments before.

"Pushing the most vulnerable" people to euthanasia (...) is a

shameful act of social abandonment

that conceals a denial of the best social and health care, "replied José Ignacio Echániz, deputy of the Popular Party (PP, right).

The extreme right of Vox announced that it will appeal the law to the Constitutional Court.

When the law comes into force, after a three-month moratorium, Spain will be the

fourth European country to allow assisted death

, after the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

The police outside the Spanish parliament where the law allowing euthanasia was passed.

Photo: REUTER

In Latin America, only Colombia accepts it, although it has not legislated in this regard.

Spanish law authorizes euthanasia (medical personnel administer the deadly substance) and assisted suicide (the person takes the prescribed dose).

The norm foresees that any person with a "serious and incurable disease" or a "chronic and incapacitating" condition

may request help to die

and thus avoid "intolerable suffering."

Strict conditions are imposed, such as that the person, of Spanish nationality or legal resident, be

"capable and conscientious" when making the request

, which must be formulated in writing "without external pressure" and repeated fifteen days later.

The doctor can always reject it if he considers that the requirements are not met.

In addition, it must be approved by another doctor and by an Evaluation Commission.

The Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez.

Photo: DPA

And any health professional can

claim "conscientious objection"

to refuse to participate in the procedure, paid for by public health.

The legislation was applauded by organizations that defend the right to die with dignity, which waged a decades-long struggle, during which high-profile cases made the problem visible.

The most emblematic, that of Ramón Sampedro, a tetraplegic Galician who spent

29 years claiming the right

to assisted suicide.

The film about his history, "Marína," directed by Spanish-Chilean Alejandro Amenábar and starring Javier Bardem, won an Oscar in 2005.

The law is a victory "for the people who can benefit from it" and also "for Ramón", congratulated in an interview with the AFP agency Ramona Maneiro, the friend who helped Sampedro die.

She was arrested for it, but not tried for lack of evidence.

"It's a very happy day," applauded Asun Gómez, a 54-year-old journalist during a demonstration in Madrid in favor of the law.

She recalled that she

was called a "murderer" for wanting to help her husband die

, who finally died in 2017 from multiple sclerosis.

People who suffer "are pushed to take the quickest solution, which is death," said Polonia Castellanos, of the Christian Lawyers association, in an anti-euthanasia protest, led by a banner that criticized the "government of death." .

Voices against

The legislation is

rejected by the Catholic Church

, and its application raises questions in some medical sectors.

Euthanasia "is

always a form of homicide

, since it implies that one man kills another," the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE) indicated in a campaign.

"A doctor does not want anyone to die. It is the doctor's DNA," said Manuela García Romero, vice president of the federation of the Collegiate Medical Organization.

In addition to that of Ramón Sampedro, other cases caused an impact in Spain, such as that of Luis Montes, an anesthesiologist who was prosecuted for causing the death of more than 70 terminal patients, although he was finally dismissed in 2007.

More recently, Ángel Hernández

awaits trial for helping his wife die in 2019

, immobilized by multiple sclerosis.

Source: AFP

Look also

Euthanasia: the story of Argentine Marcos Hourmann, the first doctor convicted in Spain for helping to die

Portugal legalized euthanasia and is the fourth country in Europe to authorize assisted death

Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-03-18

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