Madrid:
Spain’s parliament voted via a law legalising euthanasia Thursday, becoming one of the couple of nations to permit terminally-ill or gravely-injured patients to finish their personal suffering.
A priority for Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government, the law was drafted following public stress generated by a number of higher-profile situations, notably that of Ramon Sampedro whose plight was immortalised in the Oscar-winning 2004 film “The Sea Inside”.
The vote, which passed by 202 in favour and 141 against and two abstentions in the 350-seat chamber, tends to make Spain the fourth European nation to decriminalise assisted suicide, alongside the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Although Portugal’s parliament passed a equivalent law in January, it was blocked this week by the Constitutional Court.
“Today we have become a country that is more humane, fairer and freer. The euthanasia law, widely demanded by society, has finally become a reality,” Sanchez tweeted just minutes following the vote.
“Thanks to all the people who have fought tirelessly for the right to die with dignity to be recognised in Spain.”
The Spanish legislation will permit euthanasia in which healthcare employees intentionally finish a life to relieve suffering, and assisted suicide in which it is the patient who carries out the process.
Various other nations permit assisted suicide as properly as “passive euthanasia” in which life-saving healthcare remedy is halted.
Speaking to AFP, Ramona Maneiro, a buddy of Sampedro’s who was arrested for assisting him die but not prosecuted for lack of proof, hailed the move as a victory “for those who can benefit from it” and “for Ramon”.
Strict situations
Backed by leftwing and centrist parties, the legislation enables any person with a “serious or incurable illness” or a “chronic or incapacitating” situation to request support dying, thereby avoiding “intolerable suffering”.
But the patient have to be a Spanish national or a legal resident and have to be “fully aware and conscious” when they make the request, which have to be submitted twice in writing, 15 days apart.
However a medical doctor can reject the request if the needs have not been met it have to be authorized by a second medic and by an evaluation body.
Any medic can withdraw on grounds of “conscience” from taking aspect in the process that would be readily available via Spain’s national overall health service.
The move has been hailed by patients and proper-to-die campaigners.
“It doesn’t make any sense that people… would choose to live an undignified life,” mentioned Sofia Malagon, 60, who has Parkinson’s and worries what will occur if she gets dementia.
“I don’t want to be left like a vegetable.”
“Form of murder”
But the move has been roundly rejected by the Catholic Church and Spain’s proper and far-proper opposition, and some medics have raised concerns about its implementation.
Euthanasia “is always a form of murder since it involves one man causing the death of another,” mentioned the Episcopal Conference that groups Spain’s top bishops.
“Life cannot be left in the hands of the authorities,” mentioned Lourdes Mendez Monasterio, an MP for the far-proper Vox party which has vowed to appeal to the Constitutional Court.
“We will not rest until ensuring that at the end of life, a person can die with dignity without pain and without being killed,” she told the chamber.
Since the mid-1980s when euthanasia initial entered the public debate, the most popular case has been that of Ramon Sampedro, who became a tetraplegic following breaking his neck and fought an unsuccessful 30-year court battle to finish his personal life with dignity.
He died in 1998 with the support of his buddy with his story told in “The Sea Inside” starring Hollywood actor Javier Bardem that won the 2005 ideal-foreign language Oscar.
A various but equally higher-profile case was that of Luis Montes, an anaesthetist accused of causing the deaths of 73 terminal patients at a Madrid hospital. A court dropped the case against him in 2007.
More lately, pensioner Angel Hernandez was arrested in 2019 and is awaiting trial for assisting his wife finish her life following decades suffering from several sclerosis.
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