Spanish Constitutional Court upholds euthanasia law

The Spanish Constitutional Court has upheld the euthanasia law.

In a decision made on Wednesday, 9 out of the 11 magistrates in the court determined that the Constitution allows for anyone to decide when and how to die.

Dismissing the far-right Vox appeal to the legislation approved in Congress in March 2021, an absolute majority of judges said that terminally-ill patients should be able to decide whether to pass away.

Two conservative judges, Enrique Arnaldo and Concepción Espejel, sided against the majority.

The law was already in force and the appeal did not interrupt it. Indeed, in the first six months after it came into force, 24 people decided to end their lives in Catalonia.

44 out of 48 Catalan MPs in favor

Two years ago, 202 MPs voted in favor of the law, 141 positioned themselves against it, and another 2 abstained. Of the 48 MPs from Catalonia, 44 supported it.  

This made Spain the sixth country in the world after The Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, and Colombia to allow chronically ill patients to choose to end their lives.