A court in Catalonia extended on Friday a legal saga about the request for euthanasia of a young paraplegic, having decided that he can seek to end his life, but recognizing his father’s right to resort.
Spain is one of the few countries in the world where the euthanasia It was legalized, thanks to a law of 2021, however imposing strict requirements for it to be performed.
The law states that any person in the middle ofof your mental facultieswho suffers from a “severe and incurable disease»Or a“ chronic and incapacitating ”condition, You can ask for assistance to die.
In August 2024, Noeliaa 24 -year -old Catalan young woman should have been submitted to the procedure After Catalonia’s Guarantee and Evaluation Committee, an independent body composed of lawyers, doctors and bioethics specialists who take care of the correct application of the Euthanasia Law, have Supported your request.
But The process was suspended at the last minuteafter the 2nd of August the young woman’s father presented in court an challenge of the decision, with the support of the conservative group.
According to, the father claimed that the daughter suffered from mental disturbances that “can affect their ability to make a free and conscious decision”, as required by law, and that evidence that she would have changed her opinion and that its disease did not imply “intolerable physical or psychological suffering.”
In a decision made public on Friday, the Catalonia Superior Court of Justice confirmed a previous decision, made in March, that the young Catalan gathers the conditions For euthanasia, citing “medical reports that unanimously support such a conclusion.
But the court also recognized “The law of the parents of someone who asks to end their lives to legally challenge the decision.” The court ruling opens the way the father will appeal a new appeal, this time to the Supreme Court.
The Cristianos abigitedly confirmed that will take the case to the Supremetendo no x that «Noelia is a girl with a mental illness that has a lifetime ahead. THE Euthanasia is not a solution to anyone».
The young Catalan, who He was paraplegic after throwing himself from the fifth floor of a building in a Suicide attempt in 2022asked a court in April last year, authorization to exercise its right to die.
Noelia has lived for some time in a hospital social assistance center in Barcelona province and, according to her lawyers, your health Physical and Psychological AGGREENLY AGREEMENT OF LEGAL PROCEDURES.
Since the approval of the Euthanasia Law in 2021, Noelia’s case is the first in Spain to arrive in court. Until a final decision is madethe young woman will not be able to exercise the right granted to her in July 2024 – or, depending on what the Supreme decide, may even be prevented from doing so.
