Legislative Debates on Death with Dignity and Euthanasia. An Approach to the Spanish Situation

The Organic Law 3/2021 on the regulation of euthanasia is the result of the debates on end-of-life care and death with dignity in the Spanish Parliament. One way to assess the correctness of this law is to analyse the arguments used in the legislative debates. The present chapter undertakes such an analysis from a twofold perspective: firstly, by examining the rationality of those arguments, and secondly, by examining what models of debate shaped the parliamentary discussion of the bill. Knowing the reasons for and against this law and how the legislators have argued them offers guidelines for understanding the parliamentary task, interpreting the law and reinforcing the legal guarantees for its addressees. Furthermore, it allows the parliamentary argumentation to be characterised as a deliberative system and also allows the suggestion of improvements for future legislative processes.