Sadism and euthanasia

The sadism of belief. Noelia Castillo had to wait 601 days to make effective the euthanasia she had requested and had been authorized. A torment imposed by her father, who turned to the ultra-religious association Christian Lawyers to prevent his daughter from dying. That is to say, he did it in the name of faith, which like all beliefs is founded on an unprovable truth – the existence of God and the authority that emanates from him – a figure of domination that accompanies and conditions the human species with the identification with a superior being of which we have no objective evidence. An idea that, in the cultural diversity of the world, has not materialized in a single figure, but has generated countless beliefs, often in fierce rivalry with each other. So much so that Christianity itself – of which Catholics consider themselves genuine representatives – has materialized in a wide array of proposals in subtle competition. The diversity of the world is so great that it makes it difficult to accredit the Catholic claim to be the only authentic and universal one.

Certainly, everyone is free to think and believe what they want and to behave accordingly, as long as they respect the laws that set limits in democratic societies, which recognize the right to freedom of belief, but not the right for it to be imposed above the laws and norms of the State that set the shared rules of the game. And precisely for this reason, everything, including euthanasia, has its regulations. Suicide is an irreversible decision that a person makes without giving others an option. Euthanasia is a legal way to end one's life in circumstances where it becomes manifestly unsustainable due to health degradation and overwhelming suffering. And, in fact, it was born as a way to introduce suicide into the legal framework, for cases of extreme body degradation. Naturally, it is not easy to establish the limits, when it is acceptable and when it is not. But it is difficult to explain, if not from blindness or cynicism, the use of euthanasia by sectors of Catholicism as a form of ideological struggle and propagation of belief.

Noelia's case is particularly harrowing. An unbearable physical and psychological deterioration, a judicial process sadistically taken to the limit by Catholic lawyers, with the father shying away from any empathy with his daughter's distress, wanting to impose his authority, in a situation where justice has validated perfect compliance with the law. It is evident that it is not an easy territory, but the insidiousness, the authoritarianism, the disrespect towards the protagonist, the abuse of belief presented as absolute truth – when it is only so for those who believe it – conveys the offensive sensation that there are people who think they have the right to impose their morality on others without any respect for the free decision made by the person who has experienced suffering. And it reaches infamy when there are those who describe Noelia's death as “an execution”.

Suicide is an individual decision to leave the world for reasons that only the protagonist themselves knows. Euthanasia is the regulation of the anticipation of the end of life reserved for extreme conditions. And making a ordeal out of it, when the decision is clear, acquired and legally compliant, is far from the values of human coexistence. And when, in the name of goodness, an obsessive persecution of 601 days is carried out against the will of the person suffering, it is difficult to see any positive aspect.