“We are all going to die, but the way I have chosen to die seems wonderful to me.” Laura Fernández Abalde’s last wish was granted: she decided for herself what her last trip would be. And he did it, the same way he lived his 67 years: by fighting. This activist for the right to a dignified death has managed to circumvent even the extremely guaranteed procedures of the Ministry of Health: compared to the 40 days it takes, at least, in Galicia to apply euthanasia from the first request, Laura l ‘obtained in just half the time. There was a reason for this urgency. His terminal urethral cancer was too fast to wait for the bureaucracy to meet its deadlines. But the pressure worked and Laura was able to leave as she wanted. “I didn’t expect an end of life as beautiful as this,” he recorded in a farewell video for the Right to Die with Dignity (DMD) association.
Laura’s situation was revealed on November 10 thanks to information from elDiario.es. In this document, this woman from the parish of Beade, Vigo, neighborhood activist and, since 2006, member of the DMD, recounted from her room in palliative care how the serious urethral melanoma from which she suffered risked ending her days before the Xunta approved his euthanasia. He made the request on October 30, five days after entering Meixoeiro Hospital from the emergency room. He arrived with severe abdominal pain and tests confirmed metastases. Laura had no doubt about what she wanted, but it was not possible for her to ask for it before.
From there, the bureaucracy imposed its deadlines. The law regulating euthanasia (LORE) sets a period of fifteen days between the first and second request, after which the file is studied. In Galicia, as the Ministry of Health responded at the time, carrying out “a complex procedure, strictly regulated in the stages and procedures” by the LORE requires “a minimum” of forty days, because there is no such procedure. which they defined as an “abbreviated procedure”.
La Xunta reiterated the same response four days later, when the affair had been taken up by other media and provoked a “battery of parliamentary initiatives” from the PSdeG so that “no one else” dies while awaiting euthanasia. In Galicia, in 2023, 14 people died while waiting, as many as those who pushed their decision to the end. Ten more abandoned along the way.
This persistence of Sanidade found a quick response from DMD, who considered that “of course” there was the possibility of shortening the wait for his partner, which in 2022 has been done in Spain on 82 occasions, 15% of the total according to the data from the Ministry of Health itself, which estimated the average waiting time in the state at 27 days, 13 less than in Galicia. Otherwise, believes the association, the law would cease to be “a guarantee” and would become “an obstacle for people whose life prognosis is very limited”. Like Laura’s.
However, as this debate reaches the public sphere, in the field of health, things are moving. The day after this exchange of statements, on Friday the 15th, Laura received the call she was waiting for and which confirmed that her request had been accepted, even though – according to the official schedule – she still had to make the second request. After the weekend, this Monday he closed everything with his doctors. There would be no more waiting: euthanasia would be carried out on Tuesday, at 9 a.m. Laura expired a few minutes before 10 p.m. She did so, according to DMD, “laughing and surrounded by her people.”
The importance of a living will
Before, when she wanted to organize her own trip, Laura also recorded her farewells. “People don’t understand it, but for many years I have been thinking and defending euthanasia, the law of death with dignity,” he says in the video recorded for distribution by DMD after his death and with which he intends to raise awareness about. about this fight.
“The living will will reflect the things you would want when you head “I can’t decide.” This, he says, avoids problems both for families, “who will not be able to decide on euthanasia”, and for doctors: “this way, they know what life values you had”.
Laura has felt like a “lucky person” since joining DMD in 2006. While some are “excited” about life insurance, what has given her peace of mind is being part of to this entity: “everything that has to do with death, I know that I can consult it with someone.
As a final request, he addressed the Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities so that they “take into account palliative care much more than they do.” And a political message: “I would ask people, when they go to vote, to vote for those who support these causes and not for those who limit and then spend on things that do not benefit us. »
Laura did not want to wait and that is why she announced that, as soon as she received confirmation, euthanasia would be carried out “depending on her condition, today or tomorrow”. For her, “being here with my people and telling them, ‘Well, it was wonderful living with you, even though there were sometimes disagreements'” before falling asleep would be “a highlight” of her life. A pin like “no Hollywood movie” could give him.
