Noelia

Noelia is the sweet name of a Spanish girl. The sad story of this young woman is capturing media attention and dividing public opinion. Just a few years ago, the euthanasia law was approved in Spain. So Noelia turned to the authorities to request euthanasia for herself. And just a few hours ago, her request was honored and fulfilled.

Why all the fuss? Because Noelia was not suffering from an incurable and severely disabling illness; she was very depressed. Her unhappiness stemmed from a long way back. As a girl, she had been raped. Several psychological and psychiatric interventions had been made without any results. Noelia felt alone and misunderstood and wanted to die. So she jumped into the void. She did not die, but the severe trauma from the fall had rendered her disabled. Forever confined to a wheelchair, unable to move independently. Hence her decision to turn to the authorities to end her existence.

This is where the paradox is fulfilled: the State, which failed to protect her from violence or heal her from invisible pain, instead proved to be highly effective in accommodating her desire to end it all. The speed with which her will was accepted and executed caused quite a stir because news spread, we don’t know if false or true, that, having Noelia authorized the donation of her organs after her death, there were several people waiting for her to pass away.

Noelia is an uncommon name in Spain because it derives from French and means Christmas. The name Noelia evokes birth, light, and the hope of Christmas. Yet, recent news presents us with a story of the opposite sign, where the name of the “celebration of life” has intertwined with the cold protocol of assisted death. The story of this young Spanish woman is not just a legal or medical case; it is a mirror of a society that seems to have lost the ability to care for the soul, preferring the hasty solution of “end of life.”

Christmas is a celebration of birth, the celebration of the birth of the Savior of the World! Jesus came into the world to bring a message of hope and new life. For Noelia, it was not so! Bureaucracy with its arid cynicism prevailed. She executed a sick will sacrificing it to ideology and necessity.

We all wish to decide when and how to die, but it is not right to rely on the decisions of committees that, in the name of the law, decide for us. If today people are discussing Noelia’s decision and the opportunistic and ideological choices of a group of individuals who accept to represent the will of a person and can decide whether they should live or die, all of this is a strong call to individual and collective conscience. Every life is important and essential for the life of all, and Noelia has deprived humanity of a presence that will always remind us of our fragility, charity, and hope, just like every Christmas of our lives.