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we will take a civilizational step more like a country with the Transcende Law for the good death of the Mexican people. Samara Martínez, its main promoter, arrived with her naturalness, with her strength, with her determination, and with her and with euthanasia are more than 70 percent of Mexicans and more than 130 thousand of us who have signed a direct document of support for the current bill. They are numbers of beauty and grace. What a torrent of community, what wonderful energy. What a communal bond between millions to make the most deeply individual of decisions possible.
“My initiative seeks to dignify human pain and establish as a principle the autonomy and free choice of those of us who have only dedicated ourselves to fighting against suffering. In my case, I am 30 years old and a third of my life has been spent on it,” are endearing words from Samara.
We will be able to openly access a dignified death if we are in a state of deteriorated health, to the point of not being able to recover decently human health, and we want to say goodbye to life with integrity and respect for others and for ourselves.
An insurmountable suffering causes deep moral pain to the person and their loved ones. Death is not misery or horror when it is the natural end of life, regardless of the person’s age; Death is the last step of life, the final step towards the end of each one. Human life, like everything that exists, is a process of continuous change. Mictlán is just around the corner.
Assisted death exists in Mexico in an absurdly clandestine space. Many people have had to use this legally illicit procedure, but completely morally permissible for the majority, as surveys show, with such high proportions in favor of assisted death or suicide.
Help for a final goodbye occurs in ways and in situations that are surely very diverse. Most people have probably known of someone who has generously given such help, if not had the opportunity to gift it to a loved one.
In 1994 my father died. He lived in Guadalajara and became seriously ill at the age of 80. My sister informed me of what seemed imminent. I traveled there from Mexico City and found this picture: after a long suffering, he was in a private hospital, he had been delirious at all hours for nine days due to a very high fever that for some reason the doctors did not control, he was not sleeping and could not communicate with anyone, nor anyone with him, while he uttered continuous woes. It was connected to several probes. The picture could not be more terrible. My sister and brother were there, and my father’s second family was also there, his wife and my three half-siblings. I am the eldest of the brothers.
I spoke with each one and with everyone as a whole. It was necessary to take him home to end his life there. Without exception, everyone agreed. I asked the doctors if there was someone in the hospital who could help him to end this suffering. One of them told me that life is given and taken away by “the Lord of Heaven,” that it was up to them to prolong life by all means. I responded that the doctors were not prolonging his life, but rather his agony. I asked that the tubes be removed because we were going to move him home. The doctor in charge gave me a warning: his father’s death will be his responsibility.
Two days later, he died at home in horrible physical suffering, between fever and delirium. Nobody should die like this. But every day many people must end their lives, in the midst of their pain and that of their family. How much the Law Transcends is needed.
Like Samara, I want to have the right to request suicide or assisted death, should I find myself in an unwanted condition. For now, I have my Advance Directive Document, signed before a notary.
The secular State, which is part of everyone’s life, must flank the process of approving the bill in Congress. The Church and, of course, the PAN, will put stones in the way, but we must count on it and put things in their place: have a dignified death if an indistinct person wants it. Safeguard that right, exercise it or not, according to each person’s desire and beliefs.
If in non-secular states, such as Spain, a dignified death is possible, in Mexico that right should be welcomed. Little Uruguay, always at the forefront of Latin America, has already made it its own. Let’s join in.
The right to self-determination over one’s life and body is part of a civilized society; It is typical of the Holy Inquisition to criminalize that self-determination. It is typical of the most retrograde obscurantism to refuse to prevent the physical and moral suffering of people at any time; It is especially so when they are at the end of their days. It is characteristic of humanism to jealously protect an act of mercy for those who suffer without hope.
