His father, Fernando, described access to euthanasia as his ‘Xanax’ – a source of calm that lifted the fear of a drawn-out, agonising death. He could think more clearly, make decisions on his own terms, and even return to small pleasures like watching sunsets with his wife. Sanz argues that preparing for death can paradoxically help people live more fully in the present.

Sanz calls this process ‘anticipation’: the ongoing practice of scheduling, rehearsing, and sometimes deferring a euthanasia procedure. His father repeatedly postponed his own appointment, once to avoid disrupting Christmas, another time for a grandchild’s graduation. Each postponement suggested that having the option ready mattered more than using it. In this way, the option itself became a form of care before any procedure occurred.

Colombia offers a distinctive setting for this story. In this historically Catholic country, euthanasia is legal, and debates are shaped by questions of dignity, suffering, and justice. Access has improved through years of work by lawyers, activists, clinicians, and right-to-die advocates, yet social class still shapes people’s ability to navigate medical and bureaucratic systems. His father benefited from private support and resources unavailable to many Colombians, illustrating how legal rights are lived through unequal systems of paperwork, timing, and care.

Sanz is careful not to present euthanasia as a simple fix for a strained and unequal healthcare system, or as preferable to medical treatment. Rather, he suggests that the right to refuse aggressive treatment, and the reassurance of having euthanasia as an option, can itself have therapeutic significance: reducing anxiety, easing the anticipation of uncontrolled suffering, and allowing patients to make decisions about treatment and daily life with a greater sense of control. In this limited but powerful sense, access to euthanasia can be emancipatory – not as an escape from life, but as a way of loosening fear’s hold over how one lives while dying remains on the horizon.

His father’s case suggests that the value of euthanasia may lie as much in the safeguard it provides as in the death it makes possible.