Woman dies by euthanasia after becoming paraplegic trying to commit suicide after gang rape

[AComplicatedWoman]

This is one of the most heartbreaking news stories I have come across.

Noelia Castillo had a difficult childhood and spent much of it in care homes. She was sexually assaulted by her ex-boyfriend of four years after she had taken sleeping pills to help her sleep, and was assaulted on another occasion by several men in a nightclub. She attempted suicide in October 2022, and it left her unable to use her legs and in a wheelchair. Noelia conducted a long legal battle with her father for the right to end her life and she died by euthanasia on Thursday.

RIP Noelia. I am so sorry that your life was destroyed by these abhorrent abusive men.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/noelia-castillo-euthanasia-law-spain-b2946671.html

In reality, anybody who is able-bodied has the right to take their own life. Nobody is posthumously prosecuted for it.

Personally I feel as though having to do it oneself is a natural hurdle that ensures a person is really committed to the act, and normalisation of it being enacted by the government makes me uneasy, given the possible slippery slope.

Apropos of nothing I just read this, which is terribly sad and angering, given what she suffered:

"I want to die looking beautiful. I’ve always thought I want to die looking good. I’ll wear my prettiest dress and put on makeup; it will be something simple.”

Even when longing to die, women are trained to value prettiness.

We are talking about 'this woman'

The whole case is utterly heartbreaking, a tragedy. I can’t see it as anything else. She was let down from cradle to grave by everyone around her.

oh my god you actually are a pigeon.

I’m on the fence about assisted dying but agree wholeheartedly with your third paragraph. You wonder if all avenues and resources had been explored to introduce her to a different way of life albeit limited by her disabilities?

I was alarmed by her emphasis on looking attractive when she died and wearing her prettiest dress. Why on earth should that be of any consequence in this grave situation? Doesn’t that demonstrate very clearly her immaturity?

Honestly Canada has lost the fucking plot with this and all the TWAW crap

I used to think they were a sensible, responsible country.

Im not advocating for her death.

Working with vulnerable people is not being a vulnerable person.

The 'help' isn't there & even if it was, without the love & support of a family/partner someone is still able to determine they don't want to endure another x amount of years in a lot of pain.

its ok to abstractly think assisted suicide isn't for you, but you're not in that position.

Totally agree with this. Lots of people, like this lady, try to take their own lives and fail. It often has horrible consequences (as it did here) as well as causing trauma to others (one of my parents friends had a nervous breakdown and has not ever driven again after a man jumped off a motorway bridge and hit her car. He was smashed to pieces but didn’t die and she has been scarred by this for 30 years)

i personally think the one thing I am absolutely certain belongs to me is my own life. I should be able to choose to end it if I want. I’m pretty sure that if I did, I’d much rather that was assisted and both painless and guaranteed.

such a tragic story though and as has been pointed out many times, she was failed by literally everyone in her life it seems. V v v sad. I would be 100% in favour of the scum being done for both rape and manslaughter (at the least)

I'm glad you're coping better. I hope you get the help you need.

I have a similar experience. There have been several times in my life when I wanted to die. I was trafficked as a child so have been gang raped many times. I was also physically abused. Then, as an adult, I had a spinal cord tumour. The doctors refused to do an MRI for years, saying it was all in my head. It caused a lot of constant radiating pain as well as other problems. If I didn't have a child, I would have probably killed myself because the pain was excruciating and unrelenting.

I'm glad I'm still here. My life improved immensely after they finally did an MRI and removed the tumour. I still have pain and other problems, but it's better now.

I understand devoutly wishing to die. I still don't support state-supported euthanasia. I don't trust the state to do the right thing, especially with women, minorities, or disabled people. Many of us are seen as an inconvenience or a burden. If we have little value (to society), it's easier to justify or condone our deaths than to make our lives worth living. I think laws that allow state-assisted suicide provide perverse incentives, even though I sympathize with many people who have a painful terminal disease.

Yes theres lots of truth in this

Im also aware of the contradiction while most of us are in support of someone having autonomy over their body, we dont say that about anorexics, who more often than not are acting also out f control, the only control they might have about how much or or how little they put into their bodies, a wish to be invisible, wither away. We treat that, sometimes we treat that irrespective of the patients wishes.

This thread is not about you. Abortion is not the same as euthanasia. This is me-railing….

The other thing that, off tangent, strikes me about these situations is that despite all the advances in health care across the world over the last fe decades, pain is still something we cant seem to fix for people without at the extreme end, putting someone in a coma like state for most of the day, hugely strong painkillers that in the end stop working anyway.

I cant imagine being in constant pain and theres nothing that can be done.

How have we not developed effective techniques for this yet.

He didn’t derail the thread. He did not introduce the euthanasia is just like abortion argument, he was one of many replies saying that is bollocks. The derailers are the posters just like you that can’t accept a man having an opinion in his pretty little head. Get over it and move on.

I have explained it to you, but I can't understand it for you.

im not saying she hasn't been let down in life, far from it, since she was a very young child. She has been neglected & abused in very many terrible ways, she gas ended up paralysed from an attempt to take her own life. She is in unbearable pain & has 'no life'

what exactly do you think can be done to overcome all that?

she is done with it all, the only thing anyone can do is give her the dignity in death she has asked for.

yes it's beyond sad, but we can't undo things that have happened to her 💕

I agree. Her emphasis on looking pretty at such a time did make me wonder if - like many people with personality disorders (it seems she had BPD?) - she had some fantasy of how she would die in bed looking beautiful, a doomed martyr. Like a fairy tale, instead of real life.

Perhaps not of course - I may just be reading too much into it, but it does remind me of personal interactions I've had, and of those thought processes that are very fantastical and disconnected from the reality of the outcome.

As the mother of two sons and a lovely husband I still agree with @CharlotteRumpling

Why would that comment make you feel sick? They just pointed out she had serious disabilities.

This woman didn’t want to live that life and had other health complications besides the paraplegia.

Some cancer patients would prefer to die by euthanasia, that doesn’t imply cancer sufferers should be lined up and killed, does it?

I am aware of that...but the point is that ethical arguments are not just about an individual's supposed 'rights' they are about the wider impact of such actions and decisions.

You actually are male.

By the way you spat your dummy out saying you’d cancel the court case because I have an opinion on something unrelated. Yet another example of a man who does not like it when I woman has a different opinion.

You cannot railroad every feminist thread about your near abortion and single sex toilets.

If that is true (it's on x, so 💁🏻‍♀️) then that's absolutely disgusting & definitely needs investigating.

Its not a success in any way shape or form though is it

A child born to inept parents, or whose parents became inept requiring her to be cared for by the state, which allowed her to become abused. Either by way of that trauma or through genetic means she has either PD/ASD/MH issues, multilayered over the early life experiences and poor attachment

She is clearly vulnerable which puts her at risk of being further abused, which she then was, she then attempts suicide, becomes disabled through that, constant pain, nothing health care can 'fix'

So her only avenue (in her mind and she may well be right) is to die

A failure all round. The poster is right of course.

I think he did introduce it, actually, on page 4 of the thread, unless I'm missing something. Then he said he's anti abortion because he supports bodily autonomy. Then he said he was nearly aborted as though that has any relevance whatsoever. And then he started calling female posters pigeons.

There are always so many ridiculous statements on these threads.
How is it better that she attempts suicide herself - because you're more comfortable with that? Because it shows she's 'really' serious?

Well she tried before incase you hadn't noticed - and it left her still alive but now without the use of her legs - how the fuck is that better?

For the other ridiculous people saying, all she needed was for someone to see her life was worth living - why do other people get to decide for her whether her life is worth living or not? This was not some knee jerk decision to a bad day.

And for those saying she just needed to be looked after and treated better by the state - what does that look like for someone suicidal? Being locked in a room under constant supervision? How is that 'better'? Some people are putting on different medications for years to help with their mental health and nothing works, literally nothing works. But people are more comfortable with them having to live in pain and misery than they are with euthanasia.

This is all about what other people are comfortable with and not about what is best for each individual. It actually has a lot in common with abortion - there are people who are really uncomfortable with abortion and think it's wrong - should we stop all abortion due to that? Should we stop all abortion on the chance that there may possibly me some coercion involved? Why are women allowed to kill the baby inside them when they're not even allowed to kill themselves humanely? Of course I am pro choice, but you can't say body autonomy for a woman when it comes to 'killing' a baby inside them but not for them taking their own lives IMO, it doesn't make sense.

Why do other people get to decide whether you die or not when the alternative is living the rest of your life in pain and misery? It just comes from a place of such entitlement.

Yes I have worked on psychiatric wards with patients who have self harmed to significant degrees, I mentioned earlier the removal of limbs and there is a lot of that flavour to their thought processes

I dont know how recognised taht is in Spainish health care