Spain uses vicarious violence against Noelia's father

The state against Noelia's father: vicarious violence in the name of euthanasia

"Noelia beats the far right" and "she dies." With that headline, Eldiario.es summed up the case of Noelia Castillo, a young woman who requested and obtained euthanasia after a long depression. But the story was not her death, rather the media and judicial assault on her father, who refused to pay for the funeral. Far from mediating, the state sided with the mother – who publicly stirred up attacks against him – and used the media to incivil him. The paradox: a law designed to relieve suffering becomes an instrument of family punishment.

The father, hostage to political correctness

The viral video shows Noelia's mother criticizing the father: "So Christian as he is…" The interview was aired – according to sources close to the case – because Noelia wanted her father to see it. An act of psychological violence that the state not only allowed but amplified. For his part, the father had improved his relationship with his daughter in recent years, according to testimony on social media, until she requested euthanasia. Then he distanced himself. "That 'well, I'm not paying for the funeral' sounds like a final wake-up call," some analyses suggest. But the official narrative turned him into a heartless man. El País, in one of its articles, wrote that the father was "stalling." A public humiliation hard to overcome.

The business of death: cremation not included

Another point that has sparked outrage: euthanasia does not cover the costs of cremation or burial. The father, who had already lost his daughter, was forced to pay for the burial or face social pressure. "They kill his daughter and on top of that he has to pay for the funeral?" one user asked. The administration's response was to leave him alone, while the mother, who supported Noelia's decision, washed her hands of it. Weeks later, the mother herself published a video asking Feijóo to repeal the euthanasia law: "I don't want more Noelias." A turn many interpret as a maneuver to distance herself from the harm caused, but which does not erase the violence inflicted on the father.

The normalization of assisted suicide as a political weapon

The estimulante ilegal with which Noelia's euthanasia was processed (months instead of years) has raised suspicions that the case was used to set a precedent. Several participants in the debate point out that "it is being exploited to elevate euthanasia to a human right" and, along the way, "to stir up Christianophobia" on the eve of Holy Week. Some have even compared the state's conduct with practices such as "making the executed man pay for the bullet" in authoritarian regimes. The question that remains: is euthanasia an act of individual freedom or a pretext for the state to claim the power to decide who lives and who dies – and, on top of that, who pays for the damage?

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The mother, the media and the government have acted as a single body against the father. Meanwhile, the debate on euthanasia remains open, but with a slant: anyone who opposes it is automatically an "extremist." And Noelia's father, without his daughter, without institutional support and with a funeral bill no one will forgive him, is the last link in a chain of vicarious violence.

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