Uruguay

Uruguay’s Senate on Wednesday approved a law decriminalizing euthanasia, placing the South American nation among a handful of other countries where seriously ill patients can legally get help to end their lives.

It makes Uruguay the first country in predominantly Catholic Latin America to allow euthanasia through legislation. Colombia and Ecuador have decriminalized the practice through Supreme Court decisions.

In Chile, leftist President Gabriel Boric recently revived a push to pass a euthanasia bill that had long been stalled in the Senate.

In recent years, the region has been gripped by fierce debates and energetic activism around this practice.

“Public opinion is asking us to take this on,” Senator Patricia Kramer, of Uruguay’s ruling leftist coalition, told lawmakers in Montevideo, the country’s capital.

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The law, which has progressed in fits and starts over the past five years, cleared its final hurdle Wednesday when 20 of 31 senators voted in favor. The lower house approved the bill in August by a large majority. The only thing left is for the government to implement the regulations.

During the debate, senators from the ruling Frente Amplio coalition passionately defended the right to die, comparing the euthanasia movement to the legalization of divorce and same-sex marriage.

“We all believe and feel that life is a right, both in health and in illness, but it should never be an obligation because others do not understand such unbearable suffering,” said Senator Daniel Borbonet, after citing testimonies from Uruguayan patients with irreversible medical conditions.

Most of the opposition to euthanasia in Uruguay came from the Catholic Church. Before the vote, Daniel Sturla, archbishop of Montevideo, called on Uruguayans “to defend the gift of life and remember that each person deserves to be cared for, accompanied and supported until the end.”

But secularization has eroded resistance to the practice in this country of 3.5 million people, which bans any mention of God in oaths and calls Christmas “Family Day.”

Officials praised the law’s passage for bolstering Uruguay’s reputation as one of the most socially liberal nations in the region. The country was the first in the world to legalize marijuana for recreational use and passed groundbreaking legislation allowing same-sex marriage and abortion more than a decade ago. Both laws were approved by the secular and socially liberal former president José Mujica, who died at 89 In May.

“This is a historic fact, which places Uruguay at the forefront in the treatment of deeply human and sensitive issues,” said Vice President Carolina Cosse.

The legislation allows euthanasia, carried out by a health professional, but not assisted deathwhich involves a patient self-administering a lethal dose of a prescribed medication.

Unlike state laws in the US, Australia and New Zealand that restrict assisted dying to those with a life expectancy of no more than six months or a year, Uruguay does not set time limits. It also does not require a waiting period and allows anyone suffering from an incurable disease that causes “unbearable suffering” to seek assisted dying, even if their diagnosis is not terminal.

Uruguay requires that those seeking euthanasia be mentally competent.

Although the law does not completely prohibit euthanasia for those suffering from mental conditions such as depression, it requires patients to consult with two doctors to determine that they are psychologically fit to make the decision.

Unlike Belgium, Colombia and the Netherlands, Uruguay will not allow euthanasia of minors.

In:

• Uruguay
• Death
• Euthanasia
• Latin America