Noticias Caracol interview with Martha Sepúlveda

On October 3, 2021, Noticias Caracol aired a TV interview with 51-year-old Martha Liria Sepúlveda Campo, a Colombian woman commonly known as Martha Sepúlveda. Produced by the free-to-air Caracol Televisión network, the news program was presented as a 10-minute special report, with the title ‘La eutanasia de una mujer de fe’ (The euthanasia of a woman of faith) followed by a quote from Sepúlveda: ‘Dios no me quiere ver sufrir a mí’ (God doesn’t want me to suffer). With a legal euthanasia scheduled for the following week, Sepúlveda was about to become the first patient with a non-terminal diagnosis to access that procedure in Colombia. A voice-over that punctuates the interview explains that, though she may not appear ill, Sepúlveda suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a chronic degenerative disease that impacts the nervous system and leads to muscle deterioration; for her, ALS became unbearable in 2020, when her legs stopped responding. The TV segment shows Sepúlveda unworried – eating pork rinds and fried plantain, drinking beer, and laughing with her son Federico. Asked by the interviewer Juan David Laverde about maintaining her positive attitude, she says, ‘I’m calmer since they authorized the procedure: I laugh more, sleep more peacefully’ (translated from the Spanish, as the other quotes). Sepúlveda does not see any contradiction between her decision and her religion, as she explains: ‘From a spiritual perspective, I’m completely at peace. I’m Catholic, I consider myself a firm believer in God, but – I repeat – God doesn’t want to see me, or anyone else, suffer. No parent wants to see their children suffer’. The interview moves from restaurant to mall, where we see Sepúlveda being pushed in a wheelchair, then to her house, where she climbs the stairs with difficulty, holding on to her son. Laverde returns to Sepúlveda’s house the following day, where they talk over coffee. As they look at family albums, the interviewer asks: ‘But you go without regrets?’ ‘Absolutely’, she says. ‘How does one achieve that spiritual tranquillity?’, Laverde insists. Sepúlveda answers: ‘I think it’s God who strengthens me at all times’.

Before the TV interview aired, Sepúlveda thought herself lucky, aided by bureaucratic tailwinds: on July 23, 2021, the Colombian Constitutional Court had expanded the right to die to non-terminal patients; four days later, Sepúlveda filed a request with her health insurance provider, which was speedily accepted on August 6, and she scheduled her assisted death for October 10. In Colombia, the judiciary has led the right-to-die reforms since 1997, when the Constitutional Court decriminalized euthanasia and urged Congress to regulate it. Because a law has not yet passed, assisted dying has been de facto regulated since 2015 via a patchwork of judicial sentences and executive protocols. When the interview with Sepúlveda went viral in 2021, the conservative backlash was swift: in three days, the Episcopal Conference of Colombia (CEC) publicly urged Sepúlveda to reconsider her decision, and the Bishop of Riohacha (and president of CEC’s Commission for the Promotion and Defence of Life) accused Noticias Caracol of making propaganda for euthanasia. Then, on October 8, the Colombian Institute of Pain (Incodol), which had previously approved Sepúlveda’s assisted-death request, cancelled the procedure 36h before it was scheduled to take place; their communiqué mentioned that, having watched Sepúlveda’s interview, they had concluded that her medical condition no longer justified the procedure (they did not explain what exactly in the TV segment had caused their about-face). The Peruvian psychologist and right-do-die advocate Ana Estrada reacted to the authorities’ change of heart, saying that, ‘when a person talks about death or euthanasia, many feel the need to see that person suffering’; so, as Estrada explains, one may find unbearable to see Sepúlveda serene, talking about death with ease. Camilla Jaramillo Salazar, one of the DescLAB lawyers representing Sepúlveda, highlighted the irregularity of reevaluating the case based solely on TV images. In October, a Medellín Judge ordered that the healthcare provider reinstate the procedure, which eventually happened on February 8, 2022. In her last interview, given to her lawyer Lucas Correa, Sepúlveda reiterated her convictions, stating she never saw a contradiction between a dignified death and her faith in God.