Spain has 370 euthanasia deaths in the first 18 months since law came into effect

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Spain euthanasia protest.

Chris King reported for Euro weekly news on June 22 that there were 370 euthanasia deaths in Spain since the euthanasia law came into effect on June 25, 2021.

King reported that a Spanish euthanasia lobby group recently published a report on the number of euthanasia deaths, with recommendations to make it easier to kill people by euthanasia in Spain.

King reported the euthanasia group as stating in their press conference:

DMD has painstakingly collected all the information possible to evaluate its implementation, identify failures and successes, and propose ways of improvement since the law was implemented.

As explained in a press conference held by DMD spokesmen Fernando Marín and Fernando Sanz, of these 370 cases, ‘probably more than 1,000 requested it’.

‘This is good news, and the verification that it was a necessary norm. It is to be expected that the number will grow in the coming years, as this right is consolidated among citizens and the response of the health services improves’, they highlighted.

King reported the following data collected by the euthanasia group:

Specifically, of the 295 euthanasias performed in Spain in 2022, 13 occurred in Navarra (0.206 per cent of deaths); 91 in Catalonia (0.128 per cent); four in La Rioja (0.115 per cent); 24 in the Basque Country (0.101 per cent); six in Cantabria (0.085 per cent); and 38 in Madrid (0.076per cent).

Another nine were carried out in Asturias (0.064 per cent); six in the Balearic Islands (0.063 per cent); ten in the Canary Islands (0.053 per cent); eight in Aragon (0.052 per cent); 26 in the Valencian Community (0.051 per cent); eight in Castilla-La Mancha (0.038 per cent); 29 in Andalucia (0.036 per cent); ten in Castilla y León (0.031 per cent); three in Extremadura (0.024 per cent); eight in Galicia (0.022per cent); and two in Murcia (0.015 per cent).

The euthanasia group complained that conscientious objectors are not referring people for euthanasia, as required by the law, and that the assessment period was often taking 50 days.

The euthanasia lobby group stated that the euthanasia rate will increase as it is further promoted and normalized within the medical system.

In August 2022, Marin Sabau, a 46-year-old Romanian man who was awaiting trial for allegedly shooting 5 people, including a police officer, at a Securitas office in Tarragona Spain in December 2021, avoided trial by dying by euthanasia. Sabau was approved for euthanasia after being injured when he was shot in the spine by a police sharp-shooter, before he was apprehended.