Hours before dying on Friday, 60 time old Escobar celebrated what he called palm in his two- time battle with a lung disease that left him unfit to breathe on his own.
Victor Escobar decided to die and to do so intimately, getting one of the first Latin Americans to end their life without suffering from a terminal complaint, under a ground- breaking court ruling in Colombia.
Hours before dying on Friday, 60 time old Escobar celebrated what he called palm in his two- time battle with a lung disease that left him unfit to breathe on his own.
” Little by little, it becomes everyone’s turn. So I don’t say farewell but rather, see you soon. And little by little we will end up with God,”Escobar, who’s a rehearsing Catholic, said in a videotape transferred to news associations.
He failed in the megacity of Cali with croakers present, his counsel said on Twitter.
The last footage of him alive shows him smiling and girdled by family. He was sedated and also given a murderous injection.
Colombia depenalized supported death in 1997, and in July 2021 a high court expanded this” right to staid death”to those not suffering from a terminal illness.
It’s the first Latin American country to take the step and one of the many in the world, and did so despite being substantially Roman Catholic. The church categorically opposes euthanasia and supported self-murder.
“I was formerly feeling sick. I felt like my lungs didn’t observe me,”Escobar told AFP in October as he waged the final chapter of his legal battle.
Non terminal
Diabetes and a cardiovascular disease left him in a wheel president and suffering from spasms that destroyed his body.
His family backed the idea of euthanasia.
In Europe only Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and Spain have legalized euthanasia.
Colombia may have joined that list but access to the procedure isn’t always smooth.
As ofmid-2021 cases like Escobar– with habitual conditions and a life expectation of further than six months– couldn’t suffer euthanasia.
“They were being forced to live in undignified conditions against their will,” said Monica Giraldo of an NGO called the Foundation for the Right to Staid Death.
She said that since the court ruling on euthanasia, three people withnon-terminal conditions used it to end their lives but Escobar is the first to do so with cameras rolling so the public could witness it.
“I want my story to be known because it creates a path for cases like me, cases with degenerative conditions, to have an open door to seek rest,”Escobar said.
Escobar has said he got ill from times of working with exposure to asbestos, an separating material now known to beget cancer.
Authorization to die
In October of last time a panel at the Imbanaco clinic rejected Escobar’s request for euthanasia, after two times of earlier desires that were also rejected.
The commission argued that Escobar wasn’t terminal and there were still ways to try to palliate his suffering.
Days Before in another megacity, Medellin, 51 time old Martha Sepulveda, suffering from amyotrophic side sclerosis, also saw her request to die cancelled at the last nanosecond on grounds that she wasn’t terminal.
Giraldo said hospitals occasionally deny euthanasia requests over”ideological positions”or scrap them at the last nanosecond over legal enterprises.
But Escobar appealed in court and won. He chose to die on January 7– a Friday, so it would be easy for cousins to go to his burial on the weekend, his counsel said.
“I suffer from my conditions, and I suffer watching ny family suffer because of me,”Escobar said in October, heaving for breath.
The courts also granted authorization for Sepulveda to die. Like Escobar she had gone public with her case.
The government says at least 157 people have chosen euthanasia since the July 2021 legal change.
Giraldo’s foundation is now working with five people seeking supported self-murder, two of them with non terminal conditions.
Shortly before dying, Escobar said God doesn’t like to see people suffer.
“I don’t suppose God will discipline me for trying to stop suffering,”he said.