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A 25-year-old woman left paraplegic from a failed suicide attempt after she was gang raped is scheduled to finish her life by euthanasia today.
Noelia Castillo, from Barcelona, will undergo the procedure at town’s Sant Pere de Ribes assisted living facility on Thursday.
Although the Catalan government granted her request for euthanasia in July 2024, she has spent the 2 years in limbo while her father tried to halt the method through the courts. A final-minute appeal to the European Court of Human Rights also failed this week.
Noelia, who has been in a wheelchair since 2022, said: ‘I need to go now and stop suffering, period. None of my family is in favour of euthanasia. But what about all of the pain I’ve suffered during all these years?
Poignantly, she added that ‘the happiness of a father, a mother, or a sister can’t be more necessary’ than her own.
Noelia said she has invited her family to say goodbye today but desires to be alone when the procedure takes place.
Outlining how she desires to spend her final moments in an interviewbroadcast on the Spanish Antena 3 programme Y Ahora Sonsoles, she said: ‘I need to die looking beautiful. I’ve at all times thought I need to die looking good. I’ll wear my prettiest dress and placed on makeup; it should be something easy.’
Noelia was sexually abused by an ex-boyfriend and three other men days before jumping from the fifth floor of a constructing in a bid to take her own life in October 2022, Spanish media reports.
She suffered a severe spinal cord injury, which has left her unable to maneuver from the waist down and in near constant pain, in keeping with each day newspaper El Mundo.
Laying bare the rift that has emerged in her family within the years since, she said: ‘My father saw me fall and couldn’t do anything.
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‘But after every part he’s done, I don’t feel sorry for him anymore.’
While Spain is one in all only a couple of countries where euthanasia is legal, there are very strict requirements.
The law states that anyone of sound mind who’s affected by a ‘serious and incurable illness’ or a ‘chronic and disabling’ condition can request assistance to die.
But Noelia’s father claimed she didn’t meet those requirements, telling the courts she suffered from mental disorders that ‘could affect her ability to make a free and conscious decision’.
He also said her condition didn’t amount to ‘unbearable physical or psychological suffering’.
‘Why does he want me alive? To maintain me in a hospital?’ she remarked through the interview.
Noelia said she has invited her family to say goodbye today but desires to be alone when the procedure takes place.
Her mother also appeared within the interview, saying she wished she had a ‘magic wand’ that would change her daughter’s mind.
She said: ‘I don’t agree, but I’ll at all times be by her side.’
The procedure is reportedly because of happen at 5pm UK time.
Noelia said: ‘I’ve finally done it. Let’s see if I can finally rest because I can’t take this family anymore, the pain, every part that torments me from what I’ve been through.
‘I don’t need to be an example for anyone, it’s simply my life, and that’s all.’
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