This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
The case of Castillo Ramos is just the latest in euthanasia deaths across Europe, but the Barcelona woman’s choice to die has inflamed passions across the country.
Castillo Ramos' parents divorced when she was 13 and spent almost four years in public tutelage centers when she was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) — a serious psychiatric condition often leading to severe depression, suicide ideation and a tendency to addiction.
By her own account, in an interview she gave before dying to sexually assaulted multiple times when she was about 20. First, she was sexually abused by a former boyfriend after taking sleeping pills. Soon after, two men attempted to rape her while in a nightclub, leaving her deeply scarred, and as reports indicate, this led her to a care home for worsening psychiatric symptoms.
There, she was gang-raped by three men. With her mental state deteriorating, she attempted suicide by jumping out of the fifth floor of a building.
Multiple reports and social media posts originally indicated that the three rapists who assaulted her were immigrant minors under the care of the state – something the Barcelona-based newspaper El Periódico says is false.
Many Spaniards have reacted angrily the court's authorization for her to receive euthanasia, accusing the leftist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of not providing the girl with adequate medical care, opening up the country to mass migration, lack of policing and ultimately handing down euthanasia as a solution to her case.
After her interview on Spanish TV, several anonymous donors and public figures, including pianist James Rhodes, offered to fund her treatment and to provide her and her family with material assistance if she decided against having the procedure.
The Catalan High Court of Justice confirmed to Fox News Digital that all legal and medical requirements, including a favorable opinion by the Catalan Commission of Guarantee and Evaluation (CGEC), had been met and that there was nothing preventing the young woman from receiving the requested euthanasia.
Noelia died at 6 p.m. local time on Thursday at Hospital Sant Pere de Ribes in Barcelona. She is the youngest person ever to be euthanized in Spain under the country’s assisted dying law passed in 2021.