So far this January, two Colombian citizens, afflicted with difficult, “degenerative,” but not “terminal” conditions, have been “legally euthanized,” as British news service Reuters bluntly wrote. The story was broadly reported internationally as a great advance for the cause of the “right to die” by another’s hand—and the sooner the better. As British Medical Journal dispassionately noted:
“Two people who had serious diseases but not terminal prognosis have ended their lives legally in Colombia with the assistance of doctors. The country’s new policy makes it the fourth in the world, after Belgium, Canada, and the Netherlands, to permit voluntary euthanasia to end suffering in people who may not otherwise be likely to die soon.”
Newsweek headlined it: “A Dignified Death.” ABC reassured its readers the death was “tranquil.” The Washington Post hailed the “historic legal fight” which opened the door to allow more people access to the “right” to be euthanized like an animal. Oxford Analytica forecast that “Colombia euthanasia cases will set new precedent.” The Colombian branch of the World Federation of Right to Die Association leading the charge for the “right to die,” is a legal firm calling itself DescLab, the Laboratory of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which is already holding a series of webinars across Ibero-America, promoting “right to die” legislation and its educational program to indoctrinate schoolchildren on their “right” to choose to die, rather than to contribute to society.
