Spanish Woman Prompts
Euthanasia Debate
By AP from the
NYTimes on the Web, November 29, 2006
GRANADA, Spain -- Inmaculada
Echevarria has spent much of her life watching muscular dystrophy ruin her body.
She's been in a hospital bed for 20 years, her movements are now reduced to
wiggling her fingers and toes and she wants to die.
''For me, life stopped having meaning a long time ago. I want them to help
me die because I have spent my whole life suffering,'' said 51-year-old
Echevarria, whose case has triggered debate in Spain on the rights of people
with incurable diseases to seek help in dying.
Euthanasia is illegal in Spain and people who help someone else die can be
punished with at least six months in prison. But Spain's Socialist
government wants to legalize it as part of a wave of liberal reforms that have
largely transformed this traditionally Roman Catholic country.
Under Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain is one of only a
half-dozen countries in the world that have legalized gay marriage. He has
also made it easier for Spaniards to divorce, eased laws on stem cell research,
stiffened laws on violence against women and ended direct government financing
of the Catholic church.
If Spain does legalize euthanasia, it would join the Netherlands and Belgium in
allowing the practice, although Switzerland allows some cases of assisted
suicide. Opposition conservatives are against the idea, calling instead
for better pain-relieving care for the terminally ill. They have joined
the church in denouncing most of the government's reform campaign as eating away
at Spain's traditional family and religious values.
''Provoking the death of another person, as compassionate as the motives might
be, is always alien to the notion of the dignity of human beings,'' Braulio
Rodriguez Plaza, archbishop of the northern city of Valladolid, wrote in a
letter to Catholics.
The euthanasia initiative has yet to be debated in Parliament, but some are
hoping Echevarria's case may eventually change that. Her plight has drawn
intense media interest, with television and radio talk shows giving the subject
a lot of attention. Newspapers showed pictures of the bed-bound Echevarria
on their front pages.
Echevarria, who fell sick at age 11, wants doctors to turn off the respirator
that keeps her alive. It was long ago that she gave up on her dream of
becoming a physician herself.
There was a similar case in May of this year: a 53-year-old tetraplegic
man in the northern city of Valladolid had a friend secretly disconnect his
ventilator. No charges were brought in his death because of insufficient
evidence as to who helped him. Echevarria's drama is different because she
wants the assistance to be public and administered by doctors.
Fernando Martin, a doctor and spokesman for a pro-euthanasia association called
Right to Die with Dignity, insists Echevarria's request is legal. What she
wants, he said, is a machine to be unhooked, not an assertive act that would
actually cause her death, such as a lethal injection.
''She would just have to be sedated so she would not suffer,'' Martin said in an
interview.
Spanish Health Minister Elena Salgado said last week that Echevarria's case was
a delicate matter that was up to the courts.
A patients rights law passed in 2002 says any sick person who is in control of
their mental faculties can refuse treatment. And Echevarria fits the bill,
said Rogelio Altisent, chief ethicist at a federation of Spanish medical
associations.
''The patient would be exercising her right to renounce treatment, such as
assisted breathing,'' Altisent said.
So far Echevarria's lawyers have had her sign a living will, spelling out that
if she becomes mentally incapacitated she wants her life support switched off.
But Martin says this is pointless because it will have no effect so long as she
remains mentally competent.
What the lawyers need to do is make a request in writing for the respirator to
be turned off, and if this is rejected -- as expected because the hospital where
she is being treated is run by a Catholic order -- try to move her to another
hospital.
The hospital, called the San Rafael Center, says it has not received any such
written request from Echevarria and follows her case through the media.
Echevarria's attorney, Ignacio Fernandez, says the paperwork has been held up
because of concern that anyone involved in helping her end her life might face
charges under Spain's penal code, despite the patient's rights law.
In the meantime Echevarria spends her days reading and watching television.
She gave a hospital room press conference in late October but since then has
clammed up, refusing visits and calls.
She wants to die painlessly, and cringes at the memory of Ramon Sampredro, a
Spanish paraplegic who campaigned for euthanasia, spent 30 years in bed and
ultimately died by sipping water laced with cyanide in 1998. He did this
after crafting a complex scheme to have friends prepare and deliver the poison
in incremental steps so no single one of them could be charged criminally.
The story was made into the movie ''El Mar Adentro'' (The Sea Inside), which won
an Oscar for best foreign film in 2005.
''I don't want to die with pain, like Ramon Sampredo. He felt all of what
was happening to him and it was a cruel death,'' she said at the press
conference.
She has little family -- a son, now in his 20s, whom she gave up in adoption as
a baby because she could not care for him after the father died in a car
accident. She also has a brother in the northern city of Logrono but has
not heard from him in years.
''The loneliness is worse than the physical pain,'' she said at the press
conference. ''People treat me well, with kind words, but in the end no one
helps me.''
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