BOGOTA, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Colombian Victor Escobar became the first person in the Andean country with a non-terminal illness to die by legally regulated euthanasia late on Friday, his lawyer Luis Giraldo confirmed.
Escobar, 60, suffered from end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which causes greatly diminished quality of life, as well as a number of other conditions, Giraldo told Reuters.
“We reached the goal for patients like me, who aren’t terminal but degenerative, to win this battle, a battle that opens the doors for the other patients who come after me and who right now want a dignified death,” Escobar said in a video message sent to media by Giraldo.
“I’m not saying goodbye, just ‘see you later,’” Escobar said.
As of Oct. 15 last year, 178 people with terminal illnesses had been legally euthanized in Colombia since 2015, according to Colombian legal rights advocacy group DescLAB.
Colombian woman Martha Sepulveda, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in 2018, was due to be euthanized on Oct. 10 last year, but the procedure was halted at the eleventh hour.
While a judge has since ruled in favor of Sepulveda’s appeal for the procedure to go ahead, a new date has not been set.
