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News > Spain

Bill Legalizing Euthanasia Advances In Spanish Parliament

  • View of the concentration that the

    View of the concentration that the "Right to a Dignified Death" movement has called in front of Spain's Parliament, as a bill to approve euthanasia is being debated in the lower house in Madrid, Spain. | Photo: EFE

Published 17 December 2020
Opinion

In a historic vote after years of social debate, Spain’s lower house of Parliament on Thursday gave majority backing to the country’s first euthanasia law. 
 

The first bill passed in Spain regulating the right to a dignified death attracted support across party lines and was approved with 198-138 votes and two abstentions. The bill will be debated by the Senate next, and if no amendments are introduced, it could become law at the beginning of 2021. 

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The approval of the bill would make Spain the sixth country in the world and the fourth in the European Union to recognize this right, along with the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada and New Zealand. In Switzerland, assisted suicide “from non-selfish motives” is legal.

The law will allow people suffering from a serious, incurable condition to request and receive assistance to end their lives. The petition must be made four times and be backed by medical reports, and healthcare workers will retain their right to conscientious objection.

After the procedure is approved by an evaluating committee, the patient must give final consent again. Supporters said these provisions guarantee that euthanasia will be an option but never an imposition as some critics have contended.

The text of the bill describes “serious, chronic and debilitating conditions or serious, incurable diseases causing intolerable suffering” as valid causes for requesting life-ending assistance.

While the document does not use the term “assisted suicide,” it contemplates “the direct administration to a patient of a substance by the relevant healthcare professional,” in other words euthanasia, or “supplying a patient with a substance that can be self-administered to cause death,” meaning medically assisted suicide. The procedure may be carried out at public or private health centers, or at the patient’s home, according to the bill.

Several lawmakers emphasized the fact that surveys show a majority of Spaniards tend to be in favor of regulating the right to die. “It is a social demand that cuts across ideological differences,” said Health Minister Salvador Illa, of the Socialist Party (PSOE). Illa said the bill’s passage proves that Spain is “a democratic, mature country. We could not remain unmoved by unbearable suffering.” 

The leader of Ciudadanos (Citizens), Inés Arrimadas, said it was an honor to support the bill, which began as an initiative of leftist parties. “We are liberal and we support liberty,” she said, asking detractors to refrain from turning the bill’s contents into “a caricature.” Only three right-of-center groups – Popular Party (PP), the far-right Vox and Union of the Navarrese People (UPN) – voted against the bill. 

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