Lack of ethical-medical grounds in the new Spaniard Euthanasia Act

Abstract

This paper aims to make a systematic review of the new Spaniard Euthanasia Act (2021) and to analyse the following problem: the absence of a foundation that gives a proper ethical-medical legitimacy to the Act, given that the motivations and justifications offered at the beginning of the document on the need for a euthanasia Act, as well as the reasons that explain to be proposed and approved, have as starting point a moral worldview that does not have scientific-medical support. I will focus on how the clinical neurosciences understand the resort to suicide and why the Euthanasia Law does not do justice to the current scientific knowledge on suicidal ideation.