Follow the judicial battle of the Human Rights activist, Cecilia Heyder, for an assisted death to be authorized. The 54-year-old woman has been admitted to Hospital San José for more than three months after being diagnosed with a metastasis from breast cancer.
Heyder has been dealing with high-risk illnesses since the 1980s.
Due to its recent metastasis, filed an appeal for protection in which he asks the court to resolve two points: That he be granted the assisted death procedure and that not be discharged, that is, sent to your home, while you are alive. The reason? considers that anything contrary to what they ask for in the letter, is a violation of their rights.
While justice resolves, Cecilia decided to publish a letter on her social networks asking the Government for a solution and that her requests be fulfilled, in other words, that euthanasia be authorized, something that in Chile is not legislated.
She agreed to speak with Radio Bío Bío and expressed her anguish to the authorities: “There is no time for me, I ask all of them to please grant me the right to my dignified death. It’s not life, it’s torture to be conscious, to be lucid ”.
In addition to metastatic breast cancer, she has also suffered from ovarian cancer, systemic lupus erythematosus, antiphospholipid syndrome, high blood pressure, and anemia coagulopathy.
Her defense attorney, Pablo Villar, pointed out the reasons for the protection appeal presented and the reasons that Cecilia has for refusing to be transferred to her home.
“One wonders why, if this person is asking for a death, at the same time he wants to stay in the hospital? The answer is quite simple, because in her home she does not have the conditions to have a dignified death“, He detailed.
The associate researcher of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences of Universidad de Las Américas, Dr. Hernán Sandoval, argued that euthanasia should be recognized in Chilean legislation and emphasized the importance of palliative care.
The Euthanasia Law is currently being processed in Congress and it was approved on December 17 as a bill in the Chamber of Deputies, after 7 years of being presented as an initiative in the second government of Michelle Bachellet, with the aim of guaranteeing an assisted death and respecting autonomy in the decisions of the patients.
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