Carlos Herrera and everything goes with Noelia Castillo

It shouldn't be so hard to leave the dead in peace, especially those who have voluntarily decided to end their lives. But Noelia Castillo's euthanasia has become a media and, also, political issue: the most conservative right has come out in force to criticize it. Some did so while the young woman was living her last hours in the world, like an individual from the digital ESdiario who, invited to Sonsoles Ónega's program, dared to judge whether the applicant was suffering enough or not, or if she was physically disabled enough. This Friday, in Abc, Carlos Herrera resorted to the practice of placing the moral burden of this death on the government's shoulders. "That the only help the State offers to someone who is suffering is death is an ethical defeat," he wrote. But a few sentences later, he sabotaged his own article when he recalled that "the same Generalitat de Catalunya that operated on her, rehabilitated her, and helped her climb stairs is now killing her." That is to say, he unwittingly admitted that the State had indeed helped the young woman in multiple ways, that she had been in shelters several times. And euthanasia, which they presented almost as an execution, was nothing more than final assistance. I suppose criticizing the Generalitat was too easy a temptation to pass up.

There is a collective failure, for sure, in not creating a society with the right conditions for everyone to want to live. But the dissident of life must also be respected. The same right-wing that accuses young people of being snowflakes has now tried to take away Castillo's self-affirming act, even though her goal was a premature death, arguing that she was young and had psychiatric disorders. I have read too many crocodile tears in these twenty-four hours: more than empathy with the girl, there was a clear desire to impose oneself, to continue fighting the same damn cultural war.