Uruguay’s Lacalle “in favor of considering” bill to legalize euthanasia

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – “It is a very delicate issue, one that I address in terms of my own life and not the life of others, what I would want for me personally. It is a matter of philosophical debate. In principle, I am in favor of considering it,” he said Sunday (14) at a press conference in Salto, where he traveled to watch an inclusive soccer tournament.

The bill was one of the first to be presented in this legislature and is still under review in the Chamber of Deputies’ Health Committee.

In August 2020, a survey by Equipos Consultores commissioned by the Uruguayan Medical Union (SMU) showed that 82% of physicians agree with allowing active euthanasia “under the proposed conditions.”

The concept refers to the practice in which the physician “causes the death ” of a patient who requests it because he or she is terminally ill.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents agreed with medically assisted suicide, in which the patient requests the physician to provide the means to end his or her life.

Despite the high level of approval for the incorporation of active euthanasia into the legislation, 4 out of 5 respondents considered that the bill should include the option of conscientious objection, which implies that physicians can refuse to carry out the procedure requested by patients based on their own values or principles.