{"id":27169,"date":"2024-02-11T06:06:37","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T11:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=27169"},"modified":"2024-02-11T06:06:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T11:06:37","slug":"ecuador-becomes-second-latin-american-state-to-decriminalise-euthanasia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2024\/02\/11\/ecuador-becomes-second-latin-american-state-to-decriminalise-euthanasia\/","title":{"rendered":"Ecuador becomes second Latin American state to decriminalise euthanasia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ecuador has become the second country in Latin America after Colombia to decriminalise euthanasia.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Its constitutional court voted seven to two in favour of allowing doctors to help a patient die.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The court said the crime of homicide would no longer apply to clinicians working to preserve the right to a dignified life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The lawsuit was brought by a woman suffering from a neurological disease known as ALS.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She had told the court in November that she was experiencing pain, loneliness and cruelty, and wanted to rest in peace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Roman Catholic Church, to which most Ecuadoreans belong, remains staunchly opposed to euthanasia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Colombia decriminalised euthanasia in 1997.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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ALS sufferer Paola Rold\u00e1n, who is confined to her bed, brought her lawsuit in August, AFP news agency reports.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is\u00a0the most common form of motor neurone disease<\/a>, a rare condition that progressively damages parts of the nervous system, leading to muscle weakness, often with visible wasting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ms Rold\u00e1n contested an article of the penal code which made euthanasia a crime of homicide carrying a sentence of between 10 and 13 years in prison, AFP says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I want to rest in peace,” she told a court hearing in November via video link. “What I experience is painful, lonely and cruel.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The court ruled that “it would be unreasonable to impose an obligation to stay alive on someone who is going through this situation”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Every human being can make free and informed decisions when their personal development is affected which… includes the option of ending the intense suffering caused by a serious and irreversible bodily injury or a serious and incurable illness,” it said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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After the ruling, Ms Rold\u00e1n told reporters that her country had become a “little more welcoming, freer and more dignified”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“The fight for human rights is never a paved road,” she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Her father Francisco Rold\u00e1n told reporters he had mixed feelings because while Paola had been able to achieve a “historic event” and a “legacy for Ecuadorian society” his family had a “half-broken heart because there could be an outcome… which is the death of my daughter”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“We are supporting Paola,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A bill on euthanasia will now have to be drafted and approved by Congress, a process that could take many months, but Ms Rold\u00e1n’s lawyer Farith Simon argued that the ruling was “immediately enforceable”.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ecuador has become the second country in Latin America after Colombia to decriminalise euthanasia. Its constitutional court voted seven to two in favour of allowing doctors to help a patient die. The court said the […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2,6],"tags":[10137,10136,4241,2800,2689,10135,1266,138,4243,5092],"class_list":{"0":"post-27169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-rights","8":"category-news","9":"category-world","10":"tag-als","11":"tag-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis","12":"tag-assisted-dying","13":"tag-colombia","14":"tag-ecuador","15":"tag-ecuador-constitutional-court","16":"tag-euthanasia","17":"tag-human-rights","18":"tag-motor-neurone-disease","19":"tag-roman-catholic-church","20":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27169"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27171,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27169\/revisions\/27171"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}