Peru’s Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the decision of a Lima court of first instance that upheld last February a person’s right to a dignified death through euthanasia in the country.

The applicant, Ana Estrada, 43, is an activist who suffers from an incurable and progressive polymyositis with which she has been living since the age of 12 and who was the first person in Peru to receive authorization to end her life through euthanasia.

“It is extraordinarily important because with this vote of the ruling member, the right to a dignified death is consolidated”, said the former Ombudsman Walter Gutierrez in declarations to the radio station RPP, pointing out that there is still another hearing in which a protocol for euthanasia to be carried out will be reviewed.

The review of the protocol will take place because, of the four votes required, that of the president of the Supreme Court differs on the aspects of how it should be carried out. For this reason, the court has summoned the ruling Supreme Court Justice, Sara Echevarría Gaviria, on Friday, July 22, to decide on the procedural details of the protocol.

Following the decision, Estrada will become the first person to have access to euthanasia in Peru after years of public campaigning for the legalization of ‘death with dignity’.

Through her personal blog, the activist has publicly defended her struggle and has become the visible face of the attempts to legalize euthanasia in the South American country.

“Since I was in ICU I asked to see the psychiatrist to prescribe me what was indicated because I wanted to die. I was asking to die. (…) Until 2017, little by little my search began. And of course at each refusal I would collapse again,” she recounts in one of the last entries written on her blog after her appearance before the hearing that has now ruled in her favor and in which she was asked if she was depressed.

“I started writing on this blog because that’s how it all started two years ago. I go back to the root and I am my food. And no one will ever tell me it’s impossible anymore. My voice is orchestra”, she closes this article.