The Specter of Euthanasia

A Spanish woman died Wednesday night after requesting that her ventilator be removed by doctors . Inmaculada Echevarria (no relation that I know of), 51, had been on a ventilator 10 years and had suffered from muscular dystrophy. EiTB24, the Basque News and Information Channel, reported that Echevarria was moved to a state run hospital because nuns running the hospital where she had lived on a respirator for 10 years did not want to remove her from the ventilator.

Understandably, the nuns recognized that removing Echevarria's ventilator was a overt act that would have assuredly cause her death. However, Spain has been doggedly following The Netherlands in the battle over legalizing euthanasia and the state had no such compunction. As EiTB24 put it, "Spain's Socialist government, which has accelerated the country's transformation from a conservative, Catholic nation to one of the most liberal in Europe, wants to legalise euthanasia. The government has already legalised gay marriage and reduced the influence of the Catholic Church by cutting state subsidies and its role in education."

Sadly, Echevarria will likely be seen as a victim of her disease and her death an act of compassion. But as we have seen both here in the U.S. and abroad, euthanasia is never limited to those who are terminally or chronically ill with the capacity for decision making. Euthanasia expands increasingly to encompass those who are somehow determined to be unfit, "disabled" or drains on personal and/or public coffers.