This week, in Spain, a rape victim was killed by the state. A young woman in pain and despair was offered not love or justice but death. The government’s solution to her suffering was not to wrap its arms of care around her but to give her lethal drugs so that she would die. It sounds like a scene from a dystopic novel but this is reality under the regime of euthanasia so many states have embraced.

The idea of the worthless life, a life so awful the state might help to destroy it, is the very essence of dehumanisation

The idea of the worthless life, a life so awful the state might help to destroy it, is the very essence of dehumanisation

Her name was Noelia Castillo. She was 25 years old. Her life was a hard one. She spent much of her childhood in care homes. She said she was twice sexually assaulted by men – first by an ex-boyfriend and then by three young men in 2022. The second attack propelled her into mental anguish. In late 2022, she tried to take her life by leaping from the fifth floor of a building. She was left paraplegic as a result of her injuries.

And now she is dead. Yesterday, in Barcelona, surrounded by bereft loved ones, she took her last breath in what can only be described as a state-sanctioned killing.

She won the “right to die” under Spain’s euthanasia law that was introduced in 2021. The state gave its........

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