Uruguay regulates euthanasia

Recently, the President of Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, signed a decree regulating Law No. 20.431, which regulates euthanasia and the right to a dignified death, recognizing the possibility for individuals to request it in accordance with the provisions of the law.

The law was passed in October 2025 and made Uruguay the third country in Latin America to legalize euthanasia, after Colombia and Ecuador.

In Colombia, the Constitutional Court of Colombia decriminalized the practice in 1997, although it is still contemplated in the Penal Code and the Constitution recognizes the right to life as inviolable.

For its part, Ecuador became the ninth country in the world to recognize the right to active euthanasia in February 2024, following a historic ruling by the Constitutional Court of Ecuador.

The euthanasia law, now approved in Uruguay, can be applied to adults who are mentally competent, suffer from an incurable and irreversible disease, or are in a terminal stage and experience persistent suffering.

The regulations establish a phased procedure that begins with the individual’s explicit, free, and written request, and includes an evaluation by two doctors. Should discrepancies arise between them, a medical board will be consulted to ensure a well-founded and reliable decision.

The patient can choose whether to receive euthanasia at home or in a hospital, and the service is mandatory in both public and private hospitals. Furthermore, healthcare professionals must ensure access, support, and adherence to each stage of the procedure.

In this context, after the request for euthanasia, the person must submit a ratification of will in which they confirm their decision and may revoke it at any time during the process.

It is also mandatory to inform the applicant about alternatives aimed at alleviating their suffering, such as palliative care, while recognizing the right to conscientious objection of healthcare professionals who do not wish to participate.

Finally, an Honorary Review Committee has been set up to ensure that procedures comply with current regulations and to guarantee, at all times, that individuals’ rights are respected.

The slippery slope

As is the case in countries that legalize the practice of euthanasia and assisted suicide, the conditions initially contemplated for its authorization are restrictive.

In this case, people with mental health problems are excluded, and the scope of application is limited to cases of incurable and irreversible diseases or those that are in a terminal phase and that experience persistent suffering.

However, as time has passed since its legalization, the profile of applicants tends to broaden in some contexts, even including cases of mental disorders, depression, minors, or people who express profound life fatigue.

The case of Wendy Duffy, a 56-year-old British woman, who died on April 24 at the Pegasos clinic in Basel where she underwent assisted suicide after deciding to end her life, has recently been made public.

Wendy did not suffer from any illness that caused her suffering, nor was she dependent: she had lost her only son in 2022 and had stated that she could not overcome the grief.

Attention and care

In psychiatry, prolonged grief disorder is now recognized as a serious clinical condition that requires medical and psychological attention and support for its overcoming.

As has recently happened in Spain with the Noelia case, depressive disorder is being used in some contexts as justification for ending a patient’s life, instead of fully exploring and applying the therapeutic resources that medicine offers for its treatment.

Proponents of euthanasia and assisted suicide tend to abandon suffering patients down the euthanasia slope in increasing proportions, making an unjustifiable dereliction of duty to assist them in alleviating their suffering and restoring their health when possible.

And this slope becomes increasingly steep: the initial restriction of insurmountable suffering associated with incurable or terminal illness gradually diminishes until nothing more than the repeatedly expressed will is required.

It doesn’t matter whether the applicant is autonomous or not, has decision-making capacity or not, is an adult or a child, is sick or healthy, etc.

The root of the problem lies in the diminished value placed on human life by proponents of euthanasia, eugenics, assisted suicide, the death penalty, or any attack on human life. And these proponents must include those who legislate, approve, or implement euthanasia or assisted suicide.

Humanity, in situations like the one we are facing, fails to learn from its mistakes, which it repeats when it despises the weak, ignores the dependent, eliminates the sick, and neglects its duty to help those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit. This is not progress, it is not freedom; these are symptoms of a civilization in decline.