Euthanasia of Mentally Ill Noelia Castillo as a Symptom of Societal Madness in Spain 0 37

Recently, the state in Spain killed a young woman. She was not a villain or an armed terrorist. She was simply ill and in severe despair.

Noelia Castillo was unfortunate in life – she came from a dysfunctional family, ended up in a state "center for vulnerable people" in Barcelona, where she became a victim of gang rape. After that, she attempted to take her own life, resulting in partial paralysis. All of this led to pain and depression, making her condition "chronic, severe, and helpless." She requested euthanasia, and after two years of legal proceedings, the Constitutional Court of Spain decided that she could be euthanized.

This case (although certainly not the only one) serves as a striking example of the radical change in public ethics in several countries. If it was once considered an obvious moral duty to pull a suicide victim from the noose, now it is seen as an act of care, compassion, and respect to assist them in lathering the rope. If previously anyone who incited a person to suicide was viewed as a criminal whose place was in prison, now, on the contrary: those who oppose such incitement are perceived as extremists and fanatics. It was once believed that a person who was unhappy, broken by injustice and misfortune, should be encouraged, comforted, and helped back on their feet. Nowadays, it is considered that they should be euthanized. This astonishing ethical turnaround has both economic and ideological reasons.

Although in this case, death was dealt to a young woman, the popularity of the practice of euthanasia is linked to the aging population in developed countries, where the costs of caring for the elderly and sick increasingly weigh heavily on the budget. The joking wish "may you live to be a hundred and bankrupt the Pension Fund" is no longer a joke, but a harsh economic reality. If everyone starts living to a hundred – the tax base is shrinking.

This problem, the sharpness of which will only increase due to low birth rates, suggests the simplest solution – people should not live to be a hundred. And it’s better not to live to ninety. Ideally, once you retire – you should quickly take advantage of your right to a dignified death, as a responsible citizen. Free up living space and save society a lot of money. This is true not only for the elderly – but also for the disabled and any people who, for some reason, do not contribute to the economy and draw resources. Like in this case, when they killed a young woman, severely ill both physically and mentally. Moreover, sometimes this motive – "we simply do not want to feed and treat you" – is communicated without false shame, in plain text.

As early as 2008, the well-known British ethics specialist Baroness Warnock wrote that people suffering from dementia "are obliged to die" because they "waste the resources of their families and the healthcare system." The "ethical guidance" long proposed on the BBC website states that sick or elderly people "are obliged to die" if they consume too many material or emotional resources. But most often, people find the straightforwardness of the baroness excessive. The practice of getting rid of the economically burdensome part of the population is presented under the guise of "the right to die with dignity."

Perhaps Noelia would have survived this period of painful aversion to life and would later recall it: "Yes, I was there, and with the help of those who participated in my fate, I pulled through." But alas – there were people who explained to her that she had the option to leave this life right now.