Recently, the President of Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, signed a decree regulating Law No. 20.431, which regulates euthanasia and the right to a dignified death, recognizing the possibility that people can request it in accordance with the provisions of the law.

The law  was passed  in October 2025, making Uruguay the third Latin American country to legalize euthanasia, after Colombia and Ecuador. In Colombia, the Constitutional Court decriminalized the practice in 1997, although it remains covered by the Penal Code, and the Constitution recognizes the right to life as inviolable. Ecuador, meanwhile, became the ninth country in the world to recognize the right to active euthanasia in February 2024, following a landmark ruling by the Constitutional Court.

The  euthanasia law,  now approved in Uruguay, can be applied to adults who are mentally competent, suffer from an incurable and irreversible disease, or are in a terminal stage and experience persistent suffering.

The regulations establish a phased procedure that begins with the individual’s explicit, free, and written request, and includes an evaluation by two physicians. Should discrepancies arise between them, a medical board will be consulted to ensure a well-founded and reliable decision.

The patient can choose whether to receive  euthanasia  at home or in a hospital, and the service is mandatory in both public and private hospitals. Furthermore, healthcare professionals must ensure access, support, and adherence to each stage of the procedure.

The slippery slope

As in countries that have legalized euthanasia and  assisted suicide , the conditions initially established for their authorization are restrictive. In this case, people with mental health problems are excluded, and the scope is limited to cases of incurable and irreversible illnesses or those in a terminal phase who are experiencing persistent suffering.

However, as time has passed since its legalization, the profile of applicants tends to broaden in some contexts, even including cases of mental disorders, depression, minors, or people who express profound life fatigue.

The case of Wendy Duffy , a 56-year-old British woman  , has recently come to light. She died on April 24th at the Pegasos clinic in Basel, where she underwent assisted suicide after deciding to end her life. Wendy did not suffer from any illness or dependency that caused her distress; she had lost her only child in 2022 and stated that she was unable to cope with the grief. 

Attention and care

In psychiatry, prolonged grief is now recognized as a serious clinical condition requiring medical and psychological care, as well as support for recovery. As recently seen in Spain with the  Noelia case , depressive disorder is being used in some contexts as justification for ending a patient’s life, instead of fully exploring and applying the therapeutic resources that medicine offers for its treatment.

Proponents of euthanasia and assisted suicide are increasingly abandoning suffering patients down the slippery slope toward euthanasia, unjustifiably neglecting their duty to alleviate their suffering and restore their health when possible. And this slope is becoming ever steeper: the initial restriction on insurmountable suffering associated with incurable or terminal illness, expressed with the capacity for decision-making and firmness of will, gradually erodes until nothing more than the repeatedly expressed will is required, regardless of autonomy, capacity for decision-making, adulthood, or childhood, illness or health…

The root of the problem lies in the diminished value placed on human life by those who promote euthanasia, eugenics, assisted suicide, the death penalty, or any attack on human life. And these promoters must include those who legislate, approve, or implement euthanasia or assisted suicide. Humanity, in situations like the one we are facing, fails to learn from its mistakes, which it repeats when it despises the weak, ignores the dependent, eliminates the sick, and neglects its duty to help those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit. This is not progress, it is not freedom; these are symptoms of a civilization in decline.

Julio Tudela. Ester Bosch. Bioethics Observatory. Institute of Life Sciences. Catholic University of Valencia