Spanish
Uruguay took the first step towards the regulation of euthanasia early this Wednesday morning, after the House of Representatives approved the Dignified Death bill by a majority.
Following a debate that began on Tuesday morning and lasted for more than twelve hours, 64 deputies raised their hands to vote in favor, while another 29 expressed their opposition.
In this way, the project was approved and will now have to be dealt with by the Health Commission of the Senate, made up of nine legislators. If it is approved there, it will go to the plenary of the Upper House to be voted on.
If the project is given the green light by both chambers, it will be sent to the Executive Branch for enactment.
The debate over the legalization of euthanasia began around 11:00 local time this Tuesday and culminated in the early hours of Wednesday, after more than 40 lawmakers spoke on the subject and voted.
Unlike the one that, after being approved in the Lower House in 2022, did not reach the Upper House for failing to obtain the necessary votes in the Senate Health Commission, the approved project seeks to guarantee the right to "dignifiedly go through the dying process" by decriminalizing euthanasia in adults of legal age who are mentally fit and are going through the terminal stage of incurable and irreversible diseases or who suffer from "unbearable suffering" because of them.
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Among those who spoke in favor, the deputy for the ruling Frente Amplio Luis Gallo recalled that a survey carried out this year by the Cifra consultancy indicates that 62% of the population agrees with euthanasia. In that sense, he said that legislators must respond to "the expectations and manifestations" of the will of the population.
Likewise, he added: "I understand the different ideological, religious, philosophical, moral, ethical perspectives that coexist in this building and that enrich it so much. I ask that in their most intimate conscience, each one can analyze in depth and with sensitivity and responsibility what answer we will give to the citizens." For his part, the deputy for the opposition National Party Rodrigo Goñi, who spoke out against euthanasia, described the day as "very painful" for Uruguay and added that it will be remembered by several generations. "To thousands of Uruguayans who are suffering unbearably today, to thousands of Uruguayans who feel like a burden today, who are tired of living, who are in the most fragile situation, Cámara, that of their representatives, tells them that it has a solution for them, tells them that as a solution to that unbearable suffering it has to cause their premature death," he said before the vote. After the result was known, the Empatía collective Uruguay, made up of people who support euthanasia, thanked the legislators who voted in favor of the project on their social media. In the event that this is approved in the Senate and then enacted by the Executive, Uruguay will become the third American country to legalize euthanasia after Canada and Colombia, in a region where the debate is progressing unevenly. Colombia became in 1997 the first country in the Americas to decriminalize euthanasia by decision of the Constitutional Court, although the first legal euthanasia was performed in 2015. Since 2021, access is permitted even for people with serious and incurable non-terminal illnesses. In 2023, about 270 euthanasias were performed, almost 50% more than in 2022, according to the DescLAB Laboratory. Canada legalized euthanasia in 2016 after a Supreme Court ruling that declared its criminalization unconstitutional. In 2023, 15,343 people received medical assistance in dying, 15.8% more than the previous year.
