They authorize euthanasia for a patient in Ecuador for the first time and call for a law to be enacted

This Wednesday, through a court ruling, in Ecuador For the first time, the possibility of a terminally ill patient resorts to euthanasia. In turn, the Ecuadorian Court went further: it gave the Ministry of Health two months to prepare a regulation on active euthanasia and six months in the ombudsman’s office prepare an invoice which regulates it and which Congress must discuss and approve in a period of one year.

The decision taken by the Constitutional Court of that country comes after a tough legal battle addressed by Paola Roldán, a 43-year-old woman suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (A A).

Roldán’s disease progressively disables his muscles and makes him needy oxygen assistance and specialized staff 24 hours a day. Moreover, you can only feed intravenously.

in August 2023the woman had presented to request calling for the unconstitutionality of article 144 of the Penal Code of Ecuador, which criminalized murder and established a sentence of 10 to 13 years in prison for anyone who committed it. Euthanasia, as such, was not included among the causes of non-imputability or innocence in Ecuadorian law.

In its ruling, Ecuador’s highest court of guarantee declared the “conditional constitutionality” for Roldán’s assisted death, even though he established it a doctor must perform the procedure and who must express it unequivocal, free and informed consent or, if you cannot inform us, you must do so through your representative.

Another requirement established by the Court is that the patient suffer intense suffering caused by an injury which must necessarily be physical, serious and irreversible or by a serious and incurable disease.

Roldán also stated in his statement that a dignified death It is a right of “those who suffer and have suffered serious or incurable illnesses”. and decide “freely and voluntarily to end their life” to stop “intense physical or emotional pain or suffering”.

In a statement made online in November, the woman told the judges: “Week after week I am a conscious witness to every faculty I’m losing”.

Until this ruling was issued, euthanasia was not legal in Ecuador, although “passive euthanasia” was contemplated, i.e. the possibility of that a family member makes the decision to disconnect the equipment that keeps a patient alive.

“Several times I thought that I would not be able to see the fruits of this cause, like someone who plants a tree so that someone else can sit in its shade,” Roldán wrote on his Twitter on Friday, while a resolution was still pending. expected.

Now it will be up to the Ministry of Health to prepare a regulation on active euthanasiafor which the Court granted him two months.

The Ombudsman’s office, for its part, will do so six months to prepare a bill which regulates it. The Legislative Assembly must discuss and to approve this project within a year.

Euthanasia in Argentina

In our country assisted dying not allowedWhile yes, orthothanasia existswhich is so-called passive euthanasia: not subjecting a patient to prolonging their life when this is medically unnecessary.

The law that authorizes this practice in our country is 26,742 and emerged in 2012, from the case of Camila López which was more than two years in the palliative care department from a hospital, admitted in a vegetative state.

According to this law, the same patient, in a state of lucidity but aware of having a terminal and irreversible disease, can refuse surgical procedures, resuscitation artificial or even ask remove life support measures when they are extraordinary or disproportionate to the prospect of improvement or produce disproportionate suffering.

also can order your doctor to stop treating youand even stop feeding and hydrating him when this only serves to prolong his time in an irreversible or incurable terminal state.

In the rest of Latin America only Colombia has decriminalized euthanasiain 1997. Uruguay and Chile are still discussing projects in this regard, while in Mexico there is the call law of “good death”“, which authorizes the patient or his family to ask that life not be prolonged by artificial means.