A woman who leapt from a window in a bid to take her own life after suffering a brutal gang rape has been granted euthanasia by the courts and has given her poignant last words on the matter.
Noelia Castillo Ramos, a 25-year-old woman from Barcelona, was left traumatised with aggravated mental health issues after she was subject to a harrowing sexual assault in 2022.
The young woman even attempted to take her own life, plunging from a fifth-floor window that left her paraplegic and wheelchair-bound due to sustaining a severe spinal cord injury.
Ms Ramos said she simply wanted to "leave in peace" after enduring years of pain and suffering. Now, the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court in Spain has granted her wish.
The decision comes as her parents have desperately trying to intervene for several years to prevent their daughter from making the irreversible decision.
According to them, Ramos suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. She experienced different stages of her life under institutional care, and was "relying on ... the Spanish mental healthcare system" before she was raped.
Continue @ Wales Online.
"Your children are not your children.
ReplyDeleteThey are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
... You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but strive not to make them like you."
'THE PROPHET' Kahlil Gibran 1883 - 1931
Perfect. Thanks.
DeleteFunadamentally, the issue or question is simply "Do human beings have the right to choose to end their own lives or do they not?" All the rest is just details and sophistry. Because if we have this right, then the reasons for choosing and 'executing' it cannot be limited, especially by any religous reasoning (because 'religious reasoning' is an oxymoron). The IRA and INLA hunger strikers chose to commit suicide for political ends. I cannot see then, how any Irish Republican can be against the right of voluntary euthanasia. And if, then, voluntary euthansia is a fundamental human right, which of course it must be, there is no reason at all - again, especially excluding all religious arguments - why the state or society should refuse "assisting" this be practiced in the most humane way and means possible.
DeleteSeems we're in perfect agreement thus far Jeff. Humans kill - some kill others, some themselves, and a cohort manage to do both.
DeleteI think the problem here is more likely not in one's right to choose to end their own lives, but the assistance. Of course we can think of scenarios where assistance is a kind and moral act of grace, in other scenarios, it's murder.
DeleteMatt - I think the right to choose prevails and trumps any other claims against it. How to ensure the choice actually is a choice will always be a work in progress.
DeleteJeff - more or less my own sentiment.
DeleteHowever, as someone involved in the protest at the time, I would refrain from ever describing the hunger strikers as committing suicide. This becomes even more problematic now that we know Brownie and Bangers manipulated circumstances so that six of the ten would die even after they had broke the resolve of Thatcher to face them down. They were set up to die.
Some republicans who opposed the hunger strikes might find nothing inconsistent with their opposition to Voluntary Assisted Dying.
AM - I do tend to favour bodily autonomy. As for assistance, I recall commenting on a good piece Barry did not too long ago about the assisted dying bill in the UK. I'd stand by that comment, but would add an emphasis on caution. I'd find it hard to argue against one's right to choose, but it's another matter involving or even compelling another in that choice.
DeleteMatt - the right to choose is rendered redundant once compulsion comes into play.
DeleteI am all for bodily autonomy but when my sister took her own life I suppose I deferred in her decision rather than respected it, if that makes any sense. I guess when it is close to us the rules of rationality don't always work out as we think they should.
AM - It does make sense Anthony, I understand well.
DeleteI'm unsure if it's clear my mention of compulsion was in regards to the assistant and not those to be assisted.
Matt - it was very clear. And I think you got the balance right.
DeleteWhile I believe in a radical change I think gradually getting there is ultimately more productive than racing there. Roger Scruton once said something I found myself in agreement with: change should only drop slowly as it gives us time and an opportunity to reverse course if it all goes wrong. While he was a conservative thinker, I emphasise the thinking part.
States become traits.
DeleteUnless an individual has been taught or has learnt to self regulate their states and moods the more likely their tendency to reactiveness. Those with strong reactive traits unfortunately live too much of their lives at the mercy of their emotions, tend to lack more reasoned discernment, and are prone to jump in at the deep-end. Alas a more gradualist approach is generally alien for them.
As well as advocating for an appreciation of beauty through the arts Scruton favoured religious practice too. Those positions, I guess, were for him vehicles for regulation of his emotional temperature.
States become traits
DeleteSounds good even if the meaning is not exactly clear to me.
Scruton's observation on dying I have found insightful:
one is to go towards our end accepting it, the other is to be dragged kicking and screaming towards it, but it’s the same outcome: the only thing we have the freedom to do is achieve the serenity beforehand.’
His was a thought out religious conviction rather than the bonkerdom of Creationists. Dennett, a firm atheist, also felt that religion served a purpose in binding people together and making them feel part of (and presumably obligated to) something wider than the individual. He thought there were aspects of it that would be detrimental to lose - so long as it steered away from explaining the world and telling us about gods.
The impulsiveness within me rows against gradualism but the reason within me steers me towards it. While I believe in gradualism I admit to not having been the most avid practitioner of it over my sixty odd years.
Longer version of States become traits - Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny.
DeleteHands up none of this stuff comes easily to me either. But it is easier to periods of my earlier life - experiences of excessive self-medication, one event leading to admission to the psychiatric ward for detox where the doc explored suicidal ideation with me. Was I having thoughts of suiciding? Had I a plan? Had I bought the rope!!!
Scruton is on the money 'the only thing we have the freedom to do [or not to do] is to achieve the serenity beforehand.'
States become traits.
No bother.
DeleteThe state failed her at every step and have now gone alone with euthanasia (disguised as "her choice") in order to ensure this whole affair is brushed over.
ReplyDeleteThat's one interpretation Christopher. The State could have offered some form of assisted living, and perhaps they did, but she chose assisted dying. The parents' challenge to that choice was overruled by the highest court available. Nonetheless, it remains a very human story, elements of loss and of triumph.
DeleteThis is a deeply sad incident. Despite all the horrendous setbacks she suffered her right to die prevailed in the end. Seems it was the only victory she got. Deeply saddening.
ReplyDeleteAs I reflected upon this article my mind drifted back to the ending of the Hungerstrikes of '81 and how similar painful contests of will played out back then.
DeleteWhat is confusing, if the courts were satisfied she was victim of serious sexual assault, why were none of the perpetrators charged? She did not report the rape but that does not excuse Spanish police from their duty to society to investigate serious crime.
ReplyDeleteA truly horrific story I hope she is now at peace. Thank you for sharing this.
ReplyDeleteGary - it was a very well made recommendation by you.
DeleteTragic to say the least. I hope she found some peace with winning the case or the decision ruling in her favour. She had endured much heartache, I really do feel for her and those animals who inflicted the rape/sexual assault on her, I sincerely hope they suffer for their crime
ReplyDeleteIt was a mercy.
ReplyDelete