The fundamental right to euthanasia and its constitutional problems in Spain

Abstract

After the legalization of euthanasia, a constitutional and bioethical problem emerges that reveals the deficiencies, gaps and legal conflicts unresolved by LO 3/2021, of March 24. The lack of protection of vulnerable groups, the flight from conventional legal guarantees and the harmfulness of fundamental rights, among other reasons, support the constitutional dimension of the right to die. The legal control of euthanasia currently faces its legal construction as a fundamental right despite the appearance as a right to "help to die", based on the connection with the right to life, physical and moral integrity, dignity, freedom, privacy (LORE Statement of Reasons). However, from a constitutional perspective, the exclusion of minors and subjects without capacity from their subjective sphere, and the risk of eluding the weighting in conflict with other rights by adopting a higher in fact hierarchy is unsatisfactory.