The Spanish justice system has provisionally stopped the execution of euthanasia for a 23-year-old girl scheduled for this Friday, August 2, at the request of her father, who alleged that she is not in full mental capacity.
Specifically, the Contentious-Administrative Court No. 12 of Barcelona has supported the request for precautionary measures presented by the Christian Lawyers Foundation on behalf of the parent.
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According to the order of precautionary measures that ACI Prensa has been able to consult, the decision has been transferred to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Guarantee and Evaluation Commission, an organization created in each Spanish autonomous community and whose mission is to “carry out a legality control on everything the procedure followed, and it is also the body before which patients can file complaints against the denials of their request,” as detailed in the Ministry of Health.
The court understands that, if the euthanasia scheduled for this Friday is not suspended, “irreparable harm would occur.”
The 23-year-old was going to be euthanized at the publicly owned San Camilo Residential Hospital, located in the town of San Pedro de Ribas (Barcelona).
As detailed by the organization of jurists in a note, the young woman “suffers from borderline personality disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder,” in addition to lacking “complete mobility in her legs due to a spinal cord injury that occurred after a suicide attempt in 2022.” ”.
In the request for very precautionary measures made by Christian Lawyers, it is recalled that the Euthanasia Law approved in 2021 in Spain establishes that “one of the fundamental requirements is that the requesting person must suffer from a serious and incurable illness or a serious, chronic and impossible, causing intolerable suffering. Furthermore, he must be able to make decisions in a free, conscious and informed manner.
In his opinion, “such requirements are not met at all in the present case” since “the mental disorders, which include suicidal ideation, paranoid ideas and bipolar disorder” suffered by the young woman “can affect her ability to make a free and conscious about euthanasia.
On the other hand, Christian Lawyers also alleges that the young woman has changed her mind about her euthanasia several times in recent days.
The president of Christian Lawyers, Poland Castellanos, insists that “with euthanasia the ban is opened on cases like this one in which the lives of people who still have a lot of life ahead of them are ended,” as reflected in a statement from the entity of jurists.
In his opinion, “institutions should create protocols to treat the mental illnesses of these people instead of authorizing their euthanasia,” while denouncing that “the line between euthanasia and homicide is very thin.”
“The same thing can happen to anyone. With legalized euthanasia we are all at risk,” he adds, before remembering that “it is much cheaper to apply euthanasia to patients than to provide the treatments necessary for their improvement.”
Nicholas de Cardenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish husband and father and journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specializing in sociopolitical and religious information. I have worked for more than 10 years in defense of human rights and have accreditations in Journalism and Comprehensive Communication. Since July 2022, I have been a correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.