All news (Spain)

- The new Spanish law on euthanasia contested against the Constitutional Court a few days before its entry into force

Thursday, June 24, 2021 - Euthanasia and assisted suicide

Friday June 25 is the stipulated date for the Spanish new law on euthanasia entry into force, exactly three months after its approval and publication in the Spanish Official Gazette (Boletín Oficial del Estado). With this law (Ley Orgánica 3/2021), Spain becomes the eighth country in the world legalizing both physician-assisted suicide and active euthanasia, following the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Canada, Colombia, New Zealand, and some states in Australia.

The law recognizes a new right, the right to euthanasia, which, according to the law, consists in the death of a person caused in a direct and intentional manner after the informed, explicit, and repeated request of that person, in a context of suffering caused by an incurable illness and which is conceived by the person as intolerable. The text of the law tries to ground this new right on other constitutional rights, such as the right to life, the right to physical integrity, the right to human dignity and the right to a...