Spain enacted Organic Law 3/2021 in June 2021, establishing assisted dying as a public health entitlement under tightly controlled parameters. The statute requires an applicant to be a legal adult of Spanish nationality or legal residence, fully conscious and capable at the time of petitioning. The condition must involve either a serious and incurable illness or a chronic, incapacitating condition causing unbearable physical or psychological suffering.
The procedural safeguards require two formal written requests submitted at least 15 days apart. An attending physician oversees the preliminary stage, followed by an independent consulting physician who reviews the patient's diagnostic history. If both doctors approve the application, the file goes to the regional Commission for Guarantee and Evaluation, a supervisory body composed of legal scholars, bioethicists, and senior medical specialists. In the 25-year-old woman's case, every tier of this statutory mechanism affirmed her decision-making capacity before the father initiated legal proceedings.
