His problem was that while his mind was made up, he was physically incapable of killing himself. Ramon tried Spain's lower courts, its higher courts, even the European Commission on Human Rights in Strasbourg. He met walls of procedure and prohibition, or legal vacuum. He talked of somehow getting to Holland, where assisting voluntary death is not legal, but doctors are not prosecuted. In countries less practical than Holland it is common for people suffering in their last stages to be quietly overdosed with painkillers, the act camouflaged by the nicety that what counts in many penal codes is whether the lethal amount was given to alleviate pain or to kill.
Intent is a slippery fish.
Faint hopes of a statutory right to die were raised in 1966 when Australia's remote Northern Territory became the first place to legalize voluntary euthanasia. This enabled four terminally ill people to end their lives using a computer linked to a lethal injection. The law was overturned last year by Australia's Federal Parliament. Ramon would not have been covered by similar legislation. He was not terminally ill.