The debate on euthanasia in Uruguay had a historic chapter in the Chamber of Deputies, where the bill known as "dignified death" obtained preliminary approval after a lengthy session that lasted until the early hours of Wednesday the 13th. The discussion was not limited to legal technicalities or medical arguments: it was permeated by the testimonies of patients and family members who put names and faces to the suffering behind the law.
Broad Front representative Luis Gallo, a doctor by profession, opened the session with an emotional speech. He remembered Pablo Salgueiro and Fernando Sureda, both of whom died after suffering from illnesses that caused intense pain without the possibility of euthanasia. "Let us honor their memory with the approval of this law," he pleaded, his voice breaking.
Gallo also discussed the situation of Pablo Cánepa, a 38-year-old man with cerebellar ataxia, a rare and progressive disease that left him immobilized in just three years. His mother, Mónica, wrote a letter in which she made clear her son's wish: to end his suffering. While highlighting the importance of palliative care, she pointed out that palliative care reaches its limit when physical and emotional deterioration is irreversible.
The session also included testimony from Beatriz Gelós, a 71-year-old teacher who has suffered from ALS for nearly two decades. Unable to perform everyday activities such as bathing alone or holding her grandchildren, Gelós expressed her desire for a law that would allow her to decide when to stop what she described as a "progressive ordeal." Present at the Parliamentary polls, she was one of the most resonant voices in the chamber.
The presence of family members also provided a strong emotional component. Florencia Salgueiro, daughter of Pablo Salgueiro, remembered her father on the social network X, who died at 57 from ALS. “Tomorrow, euthanasia will be partially sanctioned, and I will be able to remember him with a little less pain for the injustice that was the end of his life,” she wrote before the vote.
Legislators who supported the bill maintained that the central point of the debate is the recognition of every person's right to decide about the end of their life. Opponents, however, warned that the discussion cannot be reduced to "suffer or die" and questioned the idea that there is a right to decide one's own life.
With the House of Representatives' preliminary approval, the bill will move to the Senate, where it is expected to receive final approval before the end of the year. If approved, Uruguay will join the small group of countries that have regulated euthanasia as a legal option for people with serious and irreversible illnesses.
