Friday, August 5, 2022

Man who shot a Spanish police officer will avoid trial and die by euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

An article by Stephen Burgen for the Guardian reports that Marin Eugen Sabau, a 46-year-old Romanian man who is awaiting trial for injuring 5 people after shooting them at a Securitas office in Tarragona Spain last December will avoid his trial because he has been approved to die by euthanasia. Sabau was shot in the spine by a police sharp-shooter.

Burgen reports:
The national court in Tarragona upheld an earlier court ruling that, given his condition, Sabau had a right to euthanasia under a law passed last year. The court said the law had not anticipated a situation in which a person facing criminal charges might request assisted dying.
Sabau requested euthanasia based on the fact that his injury from being shot in the spine enabled him to qualify for euthanasia in Spain.

The lawyer for Jose Antonio Bitos, one of the injured officers, argued that Sabau should not avoid his trial or conviction by euthanasia. The lawyer appealed the lower court ruling permitting Sabau's death by euthanasia. The national court upheld the lower court decision.

I am very concerned with the direction of the Spanish euthanasia law. The court stated that euthanasia is a fundamental right. If euthanasia is a fundamental right, then all of the restrictions in the law will someday be removed from the law. You cannot limit a fundamental right.
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3 comments:

  1. TershiaAugust 9, 2022 at 6:00 PM

    It always astounds me how people think they have a right to do things, especially a right to kill people. Who do they think gives them that right?
    “The law is an ass” was not coined for nothing. It is not the law's right either to decide who will life or die.
    We are living on a slippery slope of a culture of death which is becoming unstoppable, the consequences of a world without God.

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  2. Voice of Gone BallisticAugust 10, 2022 at 12:06 PM

    Alex, is "euthanasia" considered a "fundamental right" in Canada.

    Also can you tell me if "euthanasia" if considered a medical treatment in Canada.

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  3. Alex SchadenbergAugust 10, 2022 at 10:52 PM

    Canada legalized euthanasia by creating an exception to homicide in the criminal code. The Supreme Court of Canada in the Carter decision did not declare that euthanasia or aid in dying was a fundamental right, but it used strong language that is being interpreted in that manner.

    As for euthanasia as a medical treatment, Quebec legalized euthanasia as a medical treatment, but the rest of Canada follows the federal law which does not consider euthanasia to be a medical treatment but rather an exception to homicide.

    Canada is a dualistic country which has led to problems with interpreting the euthanasia law.

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