Madrid (EFE) turns two years old: “euthanasia is respect for freedom, not compassion.”
In an interview with EFE, he confesses that he does not believe that the law is in danger even if the PP reaches Moncloa, that he appealed it before the Constitutional Court and that he has advanced that he will study possible adjustments.
“They did not repeal homosexual marriage or abortion… We are concerned, but not afraid; sometimes fear is a bad advisor and gives a lot of power to those who do not have it ”, he points out with the tranquility that knowing the Constitutional Court’s opinion already provides the association.
Although the PP’s appeal remains unanswered, last March that court rejected the one presented by Vox days before the popular ones and protected the “right of self-determination” of people to “decide freely and consciously when to die in medically contrasted with terminal illnesses”.
Without official figures have yet been published, DMD estimates that until last December about 370 euthanasias have been carried out. In 2022, the first full year with effective provision, euthanasia accounted for less than 0.07% of all deaths registered in Spain.
“We know that it will always be a minority option, but it is well below expectations compared to countries like Belgium and the Netherlands. And there are very striking differences by community. We have to see if there are ideological issues or bureaucratic problems behind it”, explains Velasco.
Given the lack of quality data, DMD has no explanation for these highly disparate rates between territories, with much higher figures in Navarra, Catalonia, La Rioja and the Basque Country and lower in Murcia, Galicia and Extremadura.
They have verified that the communities that “did their homework and prepared the protocols and commissions required by law in time” register higher rates, but Velasco also launches his personal opinion and points to the socioeconomic factor: “People who care about how we are doing to die, we live quite well; we are people who have life moderately resolved ”.
The importance of the living will
Dozens of patients have asked DMD for help and advice in these two years due to the problems they have encountered when requesting euthanasia. And some, says Velasco, have not received the response he wanted either.
“There are people who consult us and we explain to them that their case is not covered by the law. There is no open bar; A right has been legislated and we have taken a very important step, but there are conditions ”, he points out.
According to the law, people with a serious, chronic and disabling condition, or a serious and incurable disease, which cause intolerable physical or mental suffering, can apply for the benefit.
In this context, Velasco stresses the importance of the living will and of making clear in it, if desired, the circumstances in which euthanasia is desired. Only then will relatives of people with Alzheimer’s or advanced dementia, for example, be able to apply for the benefit.
Velasco does not hide the drama of patients who are denied the benefit because “they do not suffer enough”, a factor that doctors must analyze and in which there is inevitably a subjective assessment that can be influenced by the doctor’s mood or values .
Conscientious objection and packed agendas
A retired health psychologist and nursing educator, Velasco stresses the importance of doctors receiving training.
The association is not so concerned about the impact of the right to conscientious objection of health professionals – “it is a minority and barely interferes in the development of the law” -, as the problems they are detecting when requests fall into the hands of doctors with saturated agendas, who are unaware of the law and can delay the start of the entire process.
“Many times it is not a problem of conscience, but rather a lack of means and information. The support of the administration greatly influences, that they can be freed from their agenda, that they have time to visit patients in their homes…”.
Right to Die with Dignity, says Velasco, will remain vigilant.
Its around 7,500 members celebrated in 2021 in style the approval of a law for which they fought for decades, with proper names such as Ramón Sampedro, a Galician quadriplegic who decided to die in 1998 after five years of an unsuccessful legal battle.
Organized activism began in 1983, as a result of a letter to the editor of El País published on November 11 of that year by Miguel A. Lerma, who expressed his interest in founding an association to claim the right to the free availability of one’s own life in Spain.
Nearly two hundred people got in touch and decided to create the “Right to Die with Dignity Association”, but the Ministry of the Interior denied their registration in the registry, alleging that their purposes contravened the Code of Medical Ethics and incurred in the crime of induction to suicide .
They appealed against the decision, they obtained support from intellectuals and international organizations and in December 1984 the association was finally registered in the Interior registry.