With the new Public Health Law, approved this Friday by the National Assembly of People’s Power, Cuba became the second country in Latin America and the Caribbean to allow euthanasia.
On December 11, 2022, Cuban Minister of Health José Ángel Portal Miranda presented a draft Public Health Law to the deputies of the Assembly and announced that it would be discussed by the provinces during 2023.
After a year, and before the vote, the minister described the bill as “updated, comprehensive, protective, built collectively, innovative and ethical.”
The Law confirms the “responsibility of the State to guarantee access, free and quality care, protection and recovery services.”
Users more than patients
On the other hand, the law grants more autonomy to users of the health system and among their rights and duties recognizes those of “free access” and receiving timely and quality services; being cared for by staff with the required qualifications who will provide dignified treatment “free from abuse, coercion or violence” and without discrimination for “any cause, condition or circumstance.”
This new regulation, which leaves Law 41 of 1983 behind, recognizes sexual and reproductive rights, so that “the development” of the user’s sexuality “in a healthy way” is recognized and respected.
It also endorses the need for people to be able to “access methods for contraception and voluntary termination of pregnancy…” as well as the right to “resort to treatments for infertility…through the use of assisted reproduction techniques.”
Abortion and reproductive rights, what will the new Public Health Law say?
Shielded abortion
During the parliamentary session, deputy Yamila González Ferrer, vice president of the National Union of Jurists of Cuba and one of the promoters of the Family Code, considered that the Law protects the right to abortion, which in Cuba has been guaranteed for more than 50 years by the health system, but without there being a law that established it as a right.
“We do not want abortion to be the first option, it cannot be a contraceptive method. We know it and it is part of comprehensive sex education. The fact that the law reflects it in a context in which there are setbacks in that area in the region and in the world, is significant for Cuban women and their right to decide about her body,” said González Ferrer.
Draft Public Health Law in Cuba includes recognition of euthanasia
Euthanasia
One of the most controversial and at the same time most advanced aspects of the Law is the inclusion of the right to euthanasia.
In the world, only countries such as Switzerland, Holland, Luxembourg, Canada, Australia, Spain, Germany, New Zealand, Colombia and some states in the United States allow euthanasia to varying degrees.
“The right of people to access a dignified death is recognized, through the exercise of end-of-life determinations, which may include the limitation of therapeutic effort, continuous or palliative care, and valid procedures that end life,” reads the document approved this Friday by the deputies.
