RAMÓN SAMPEDRO'S WILL
Complete text of Ramón Sampedro's Will:
Your Honors, Political and Religious Authorities:
After watching the images you have just seen, of a person taking
care of an atrophied and deformed body -mine- I ask you: what
does dignity means to you?
Whatever your consciences' answer is, for me, this is not
dignity. This is not living with dignity!
I, along with some judges, and the majority of people who love
life and freedom, think that living is a right, not an
obligation. Nevertheless, I have been obligated to tolerate this
pitiful situation for 29 years, 4 months, and several days.
I refuse to continue doing it any longer!
Some of you will ask: why die now -and in this way- if it is just
as illegal as it was 29 years ago?
Among other reasons, because 29 years ago, the freedom I am now
demanding was not possible under the law. Today it does. And it
is because of your indolence that I am obligated to do what I am
doing.
- It is going on five years -for my legal case-
that I asked you the following question: should the
person who helps in my euthanasia be punished?
According to the Spanish Constitution -and without being
an expert in judicial matters- categorically NO.
But the "authorized court" -that is to say, the
Constitutional- refuses to respond. The politicians -the
legislators- answer indirectly by creating "judicial
slipshod work" in the form of the Penal Code. And
the religious people thank God that this is the way it
is.
This is not an ethical or moral authority. This is
political posturing, intolerant paternalism, and
religious fanaticism.
- I turned to justice with the aim that my acts
would not have penal consequences for anyone else. I have
been waiting for five years. And because so much
indolence seems like a mockery to me, I have decided to
put an end to all this, in a way that I consider to be
the most dignified, humane, and rational.
As you can see, beside me, I have a glass of water
containing a dose of potassium cyanide. When I drink it,
I will be renouncing -voluntarily- the most legitimate
and private possession I own -that is to say, my body. I
will also have freed myself from a humiliating slavery
-being a quadriplegic.
This act of freedom -with help- you all call cooperating
in a suicide -or assisted suicide.
Nevertheless, I consider it necessary help -and humane-
to be the sovereign owner of the only thing a human being
can really call "Mine" -that is, one's body and
all that that comes with it -all that it is- life and its
conscience.
- You can punish the humankind that has loved me,
and that was understanding with that love, that is to
say, loving me as they love themselves. Of course in
order to do this, they had to overcome the psychological
terror of your vengeance -that is their only crime-.
Apart from accepting the moral duty to do what ought to
be done, that is to say, from which they have the least
to gain, and what hurts them the most.
Yes, you can punish, but you know that that is simply
vengeance -legal, but not legitimate-. You will know that
it is an injustice, because there will be not the least
doubt that the only one responsible for my acts is
myself, and only myself.
But if in spite of my reasons, you decide to exercise
that fearful punishment, I advise you -and I beg you- to
do the fair thing: cut off the arms and the legs of the
person who cooperated, because those were what I need
them from them. The conscience was mine. And so, mine has
been the acts, and mine the intention of the deeds.
- Your Honors; to deny the private property of our
own selves is the biggest of cultural lies. For a culture
that worships the private property of things -among them,
earth and water- it is an aberration to deny the most
private property of them all, our personal Land and
Kingdom. Our body; life and conscience. -Our Universe.
[There follows here some paragraphs written in Gallego that
are dedicated to his family and that are not reproduced here
out of respect for their privacy.]
Your Honors, Political and Religious Authorities:
It is not that my conscience finds itself trapped in the
deformity of my atrophied and numb body; but in the deformity,
atrophy and insensitivity of your consciences.
-
(Translated by Denise Lanzer-Lerma)
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Last modified: Mar 09, 1998