Uruguay becomes first Latin American country to legalise assisted suicide

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Uruguay has become the first Latin American country to legalise assisted suicide after the country’s Senate voted in favour of its legalisation. 

According to the Straits Times, after 10 hours of debate the Uruguay Senate voted 20-11 in favour of approving a “Dignified Dying” bill that sought to legalise assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill, suffering and who are mentally competent. 

The bill was already approved by the lower Chamber of Representatives in August this year, and the Senate's vote passed the bill into law.

Uruguay was one of the first countries in the region to pass socially liberal laws, such as abortion, legalising marijuana and same-sex marriage, and is now the first Latin American country to legalise assisted suicide. 

Currently, whilst Ecuador and Colombia have not legalised the practice of assisted suicide, they have made steps towards assisted suicide by having it decriminalised, whereas Cuba has passed a law to allow patients with a terminal illness to refuse to be kept alive artificially. 

A poll in Uruguay, as reported in the Strait Times, found that 60 per cent of people were in favour of legalising assisted suicide with 24 per cent opposed to it. However, the news has been met with opposition from the Catholic Church.

The Uruguayan Bishops’ Conference released a statement in response to the legalisation saying that “this law promotes the ‘culture of death.’”

“In a country with a high suicide rate, with serious difficulties in addressing the issue of mental health, this law goes against the value and dignity of human life and puts us on a risky path of normalizing the search for death as a solution to life situations that can be addressed in other ways,” they said.

“Every human life appears before us as something unique, unrepeatable, and irreplaceable; its value is independent of health status, ethnicity, sex, culture, socioeconomic status, or any other circumstance.”

“As the Church on pilgrimage in Uruguay, we want to continue working to protect life and its dignity, as is also recognized by our Constitution and the several international treaties our country has signed,” they continued.

“We are convinced that sharing our moments of greatest human weakness can become a great opportunity to discover together the transcendent and profound meaning of our lives.”

Other countries that have legalised assisted suicide include Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, New Zealand, Portugal, some states in Australia, as well as some US states including Oregon and Washington, whereas the UK are currently battling an assisted suicide bill despite having a failing health system. However, several concerns have arisen after the passing of assisted suicide legisations, with many recent cases coming from Canada, where assisted suicide has been offered as an alternative to appropriate and requested healthcare.

Sandra Parda of the Life Institute commented, saying: “This is very sad and disturbing news from Uruguay. Instead of standing up to protect those in a vulnerable situation, lawmakers have decided to allow for people to be killed off instead.”

“It is clear that where assisted suicide is legal, several serious concerns arise where the dignity and value of a person is determined by whether they are sick or dying or not. This is an attitude that should not be accepted in our society, and lawmakers should heed to the warnings and consequences of legalised assisted suicide from other countries instead of going deeper into this dangerous slippery slope that disregards some human lives simply because they are no longer deemed ‘perfect’”