by Brendan O’Neill, Spectator
This week, in Spain, a rape victim was killed by the state. A young woman in pain and despair was offered not love or justice but death. The government’s solution to her suffering was not to wrap its arms of care around her but to give her lethal drugs so that she would die. It sounds like a scene from a dystopic novel but this is reality under the regime of euthanasia so many states have embraced.
The idea of the worthless life, a life so awful the state might help to destroy it, is the very essence of dehumanisation
Her name was Noelia Castillo. She was 25 years old. Her life was a hard one. She spent much of her childhood in care homes. She said she was twice sexually assaulted by men – first by an ex-boyfriend and then by three young men in 2022. The second attack propelled her into mental anguish. In late 2022, she tried to take her life by leaping from the fifth floor of a building. She was left paraplegic as a result of her injuries.
And now she is dead. Yesterday, in Barcelona, surrounded by bereft loved ones, she took her last breath in what can only be described as a state-sanctioned killing.
She won the “right to die” under Spain’s euthanasia law that was introduced in 2021. The state gave its deathly blessing to her mortal demise in 2024 but it was halted at the last minute following a legal challenge from her father. He said her mental ill-health impaired her ability to decide on something as grave as death. He fought hard to save his girl. But the European Court of Human Rights overruled him and insisted Spain had the right to assist in the destruction of Noelia’s life.
One struggles to imagine a more nightmarish scenario. A dad battling bureaucrats for the life of his daughter – even Kafka’s mind could not have conjured up such a horror. Everyone should feel haunted by the truly unholy vision of ECHR judges in their draping black robes dismissing a father’s plea for the life of his daughter with a wave of their hand. It feels medieval. It’s a ruling that shames Europe.