Ramón Sampedro

Ramón Sampedro Cameán (5 January 1943 – 12 January 1998) was a Spanish seaman and writer. Sampedro became a quadriplegic at the age of 25 (on 23 August 1968), following a diving accident, and fought for his right to assisted dying for the following 29 years.

Demand for suicide

As a young man, Sampedro jumped into the sea from rocks near his home, a fishing village in the northern Spanish region of Galicia. Misjudging the water's depth, he struck his head on the seabed. He sustained a spinal cord injury, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.

Sampedro applied to Spain's lower courts, its higher courts, and the European Commission on Human Rights in Strasbourg to legally end his life. His argument hinged on the fact that he was sure of his decision to die. However, owing to his paralysis, he was physically unable to die by suicide without help. He argued that suicide was a right that he was being denied, and he sought legal advice concerning his right to receive assistance to end his life, first in the courts of Spain, where his case attracted country-wide attention. Eventually, his fight became known worldwide.

Death and aftermath

Sampedro died on Monday 12 January 1998 in Boiro, Spain, from potassium cyanide poisoning. Several days later, his close friend Ramona Maneiro was arrested and charged with assisting his suicide. Sampedro had divided the elements required to complete his suicide into individual tasks, each small enough that no single person could be convicted of assisting the suicide process entirely. Maneiro was released due to lack of evidence. No further charges were ever filed in connection with Sampedro's death.

Seven years later, after the statute of limitations had expired, Maneiro, speaking on a Spanish talk show, admitted to providing Sampedro with a cyanide-laced drink and a straw. She said "I did it for love." She also said she had turned on the video camera that recorded Sampedro's last words before he drank the poison and that she was in the room, behind the camera.

He left an open letter to the judges and the society and caused an ethical turmoil in the Spanish society which led to a Senatorial Committee on Euthanasia in 1999.

In popular culture

The story of Sampedro's life and death has been made into two Spanish films:

''Condenado a vivir'' (English: ''Condemned to Live'') (2001) is a TV-movie jointly produced by FORTA, the association of the public broadcasting regional networks of Spain, directed by Roberto Bodegas

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