The Daily Populous Friday March 27th, 2026 morning edition
Authored by edition.cnn.com and submitted by ScienceTeacher1994

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story involves discussion about suicide that some readers may find upsetting. If you feel you are in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the 24-hour Suicide Crisis Lifeline.

Noelia Castillo’s story was defined by pain – both physical and emotional. This overwhelming pain led the young Spaniard to request euthanasia in 2024. On Thursday, at 25 years old, that request was fulfilled and her difficult life came to an end.

“I want to leave in peace already and stop suffering, period,” Castillo said days before her death, in an interview on the Spanish news channel Antena 3.

Her case sparked intense debate in Spain, especially after the interview aired – both among those who supported her decision and among those who messaged her on social media urging her not to choose euthanasia.

In the interview, Castillo explained that her decision was rooted in a turbulent home life following her parents’ separation when she was 13. Castillo spent time in a supervised care center and was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder.

She also recounted to her interviewer three episodes of sexual abuse: one allegedly perpetrated by an ex-partner, another in a nightclub where she said two men raped her, and a third in a bar involving three young men. She said she never reported any of them. Days after the second episode, in October 2022, she attempted suicide. She survived the attempt, but was left paraplegic and wheelchair-bound.

This became the turning point that led her to consider euthanasia.

“Sleeping is very difficult for me, and besides that, I have back and leg pain,” Castillo said. But she also emphasized that the suffering was not only physical. Before requesting euthanasia, “My world was very dark … I had no goals, no objectives, nothing,” she said.

Her euthanasia was carried out in the Sant Pere de Ribes hospital where she had been living.

Assisted suicide has been legal in Spain since June 2021. For Castillo, applying for it was only the beginning of a complex journey – mainly because her family opposed it.

Her request had been approved on July 18, 2024, by the Catalonia Guarantee and Evaluation Commission. The commission found that she met all legal requirements, as she had a “nonrecoverable clinical situation,” causing “severe dependence, pain, and chronic, disabling suffering.” All of this prevented her from living autonomously and negatively affected her daily life.

But in August of that same year, her father – advised by the ultraconservative religious group Christian Lawyers – began a legal fight to stop the process, arguing that she was incapable of making such a decision.

“He has not respected my decision and he never will,” Castillo said about her father.

From then on, her father initiated a long legal process that delayed Noelia’s euthanasia for 20 months, going through five judicial levels: a Barcelona court, the High Court of Justice of Catalonia, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, and the European Court of Human Rights.

None of these bodies opposed the young woman’s decision. All found that she met the requirements and was capable of deciding to die.

“I understand he’s a father, that he doesn’t want to lose a daughter,” Castillo reflected in her interview. She added that she felt confused because she did not have a close relationship with him.

“He ignores me. So why does he want me alive? To keep me in a hospital?” she said.

The battle Castillo fought ultimately enabled her to carry out her decision.

“I finally did it, and now maybe I can finally rest,” she told the Antena 3 journalist. “I can’t take this family anymore, I can’t take the pain anymore, I can’t take everything that torments me in my head.”

Castillo said goodbye to her entire family and asked that in her final moments, she be left alone.

“I don’t want anyone inside” her room, she said. “I don’t want them to see me close my eyes.”

slayer991 on March 26th, 2026 at 21:53 UTC »

This story is so much worse than just the parents trying to stop her.

She was gang-raped and as a result of the trauma attempted suicide by jumping out a 5th story window. She survived but was paralyzed from the waist down and suffered chronic pain.

Edit: The reports of gang-rape may not be accurate. It's a bit confusing based on thd translation of the article below:

One of the hoaxes that has run the most on and off social networks is that Noelia suffered a gang rape by foreigners in a protected center. "This completely destroyed her life, which led to a failed suicide attempt that left her quadriplegic," says one of the most viralized messages, which follows: "The system has failed her and now offers her euthanasia as a remedy."

This information is false, according to the Directorate General of Prevention and Protection of Infància and l'Adolescència (DGPPIA). Sources of the body point out that Noelia, indeed, was protected and received in two residential centers from July 3, 2015 (13 years) until February 11, 2019, when she turned 18 and "left the system voluntarily". During that time "there is no incident of recorded sexual assault," they say.

The young woman did suffer a multiple assault, by three men, in 2022. After this episode she attempted suicide by throwing herself on a fifth floor. In the wake of this terrible episode, it was quadriplegic.

Months before this episode, as the young woman has now explained, she suffered an attempted assault by two boys in a nightclub. Before but being of legal age, Noelia has also explained in her interview in Antena 3 that a boy who for four years was her partner abused her one night to take sleeping pills.

https://www.elperiodico.com/es/sociedad/20260326/bulos-eutanasia-noelia-violacion-menas-depresion-falta-tratamiento-extranjeros-centro-menores-128449159

Tina4Tuna on March 26th, 2026 at 21:11 UTC »

A father battled to keep alive a daughter whom he would not visit, call, text… just for the sake of his own beliefs.

A father that called her daughter to say “you must be happy, but what are you talking about suffering? you’ve never known any suffering”, after she got the legal right to decide what to do with her own life, to let everything go.

I feel like the interview bits released today were quite…predatory, considering the timing. But I encourage you to see what she had to say about her father, her family, and why she wanted what she wanted. It’s heartbreaking.

Lonely_Noyaaa on March 26th, 2026 at 21:09 UTC »

> I don't want anyone inside. I don't want them to see me close my eyes.

She asked to be alone at the end and that wish was respected. After everything she went through to get there, at least she got that much and she had to fight five levels of courts just to be heard.