Euthanasia for psychological pain?

Noelia is already dead. And she is dead because the state has executed her. I believe in the state and in the fact that the monopoly of violence is in its hands. But not that of death. The death penalty disappeared from the functioning of Spanish institutions decades ago. In prisons, people commit suicide, but they are not euthanized. It is worth asking why in a hospital it should be any different. Noelia is dead because a committee has considered that her illness has no foreseeable solution and that the chronic and intolerable condition of her suffering justifies her death. And that the will to power, finally, to rest, takes precedence over the rest of her rights and duties. But even if we accepted the existence of the mythological little animals of will and autonomy, one would have to ask whether the state can obey someone's desire for death when that desire for death is a symptom of their illness. Noelia was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a disorder crossed by suicidal ideation. Noelia tried to commit suicide and, when that happened, the state's healthcare system prevented her from dying. Now that Noelia has explained, on Sonsoles Ónega's program, that she had always thought she wanted to "die beautiful", the state has allowed her to die. Beautiful.Euthanasia for mentally ill patients has been a debate for decades in Europe. “If chronic and unbearable physical suffering serves as an argument for requesting assisted death, why shouldn't psychological suffering serve?”, they say. “Why distinguish one pain from the other?”, they ask. And they add a paradox: some psychiatric patients, when they receive permission to die, decide not to. Indeed, in a 2015 study with Belgian patients – a country where euthanasia for psychological suffering is permitted – it happened like this: of all the patients who received permission to die, eight retracted, who knows if reconciled to life by having the possibility of dying peacefully at hand or by some twist of fate. But let's put it better: of all the patients who obtained permission to die, eight retracted; thirty-five died.I don't know if Spain is ready for Noelia to be the first name on a list, to become the practical precedent that death to alleviate psychological pain is possible and acceptable in the country. But above all, I don't know if it can afford it. Among those surveyed by the INE in 2023, more than 14% had recently shown symptoms of depression, another disorder crossed by suicidal ideation.The state cannot renounce caring for its sick. It is a renunciation of the future, of progress, of the machinery of medicine that advances every day. To give up a sick life definitively at 25 years old is to not understand the times we live in. To speak of chronic illnesses and irreparable pains in an era of daily pharmaceutical discoveries is to violate the principle of reality. To give death to a young woman of 25 years is not the exercise of an "ethical and democratic" society, as has been said. It is the society of care distributing the pill of death.