Spain legalizes euthanasia despite Catholic opposition… Fourth in europe

AFP news agency reported on the 18th (local time) that Spain is facing the fourth legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Europe after the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

The Spanish parliament is on the verge of final approval of the euthanasia bill.

The bill would allow medical staff to deliberately end their lives to relieve suffering and assisted suicide by helping patients to proceed with their own procedures.

Specifically, it is applied when a person who has a serious incurable disease or is chronically incapable of a normal life requests death to avoid unbearable pain.

However, strict standards were set so that euthanasia was not abused.

Being a Spanish national or legal resident, you must be fully aware of and understand euthanasia.

In addition, they must write and request in person twice every 15 days.

If these criteria are not met, or if approval is not obtained from a second medical staff or evaluation body, it may be rejected.

Medical staff may also refuse to participate in euthanasia for reasons of conscience.

The bill is supported by left and center political parties.

Activists advocating for patients and their’right to die’ are strongly urging the legislation to pass.

On the other hand, the Catholic Church, right-wing political parties, and some medical staff have expressed opposition to the bill.

In Spain, controversy for and against euthanasia has continued since the 1980s.

The Ramon Champedro case, which was also made into a movie, is particularly famous.

At the age of 25, he suffers a paralysis while diving in the sea.

Later, he fought in court for 30 years to legalize euthanasia for graceful death.

Eventually he died in 1998 with the help of his friend Ramona Maneiro.

Maneiro was arrested at the time and released for lack of evidence. When the statute expired, she confessed that she had provided poison to Champedaro.

Maneiro said that the legalization of euthanasia in Spain “will be a victory for Ramon and those who will benefit.”

‘The Sea Inside’, a film about his life, won the Best Foreign Language Film Awards at the 62nd Golden Globe Awards and the 77th Academy Awards, respectively.

In Spain, in addition to the Champedro case, Luis Montes, an anesthesiologist in Madrid, was charged with helping the deaths of 73 terminally ill patients.

The court stopped prosecuting him in 2007.

Most recently, in 2019, Angelo Hernandez was arrested after helping the euthanasia of his wife, who has suffered from multiple sclerosis for decades.

Euthanasia is largely divided into active euthanasia, passive euthanasia, and assisted suicide.

Passive euthanasia refers to the act of ending life before natural death by stopping treatment necessary for life support, such as supplying nutrition to an unconscious patient.

On the other hand, if a doctor directly injects lethal drugs, it is an active euthanasia, and if a patient takes a lethal drug prescribed by a doctor, it is an assisted suicide.

Few countries in Europe have legalized active and direct euthanasia.

The Netherlands and Belgium legalized it in 2002, and Luxembourg decided in 2009 to allow it only for certain terminally ill cases.

Belgium became the first country to allow euthanasia of children in 2014.

Other countries in Europe endorse or allow passive euthanasia on a case-by-case basis.

Sweden approved passive euthanasia in 2010, and the UK allowed medical staff to stop life-sustaining treatment in certain cases after 2002.

Germany and Austria also allow passive euthanasia upon request by patients.

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