Spain has today voted to approve a law to legally permit euthanasia and assisted suicide for people with serious and incurable or debilitating diseases, CNN reports.

On Thursday (March 18), the Spanish parliament approved a bill to legalize euthanasia, where medical staff can deliberately end a life of a patient with a "serious or incurable illness" or a "chronic or incapacitating" condition and who has "no chance of recovery".

The law has been passed to help those from experiencing "intolerable suffering", The Independent reports.

The Mediterranean country is now the fourth in the EU - after Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg - to permit the practice, and was approved after a 202 to 141 vote in parliament.

[[imagecaption|| Spanish Parliament building. Credit: Michael Brooks / Alamy]]

Per the Independent, helping a person end their life has carried a 10-year sentence in the country.

The publication adds that the patient must be fully aware and conscious when they submit their request, which must then be submitted twice in writing, 15 days apart.

A second doctor and an evaluation body must also approve the request, with either doctor being permitted to reject the request if the requirements are not met. Any medic can also withdraw on grounds of conscience.

Additionally, doctors will not be required to participate in ending a person's life, CNN states.

As reported by CNN, during the final debate, Socialist Party MP Maria Luisa Carcedo highlighted the famous case of Ramon Sampedro, a Spanish man who was paralyzed and in 1998 recorded his then-illegal euthanasia.

This true story was the premise of the 2004 Oscar-winning movie, The Sea Inside, directed by Alejandro Amenábar.

MP Lourdes Mendez, from the far-right Vox party, told parliament: "You have elected death instead of medicine" and said there would be "an appeal to Spain's Constitutional Court."

MP Jose Ignacio Echaniz, from the main opposition conservative Popular Party, told parliament that the new law would "provoke distrust between parents and children. Today, the weakest in society have reason to fear."

[[imagecaption|| Javier Bardem as Ramon Sampedro in The Sea Inside. Credit: AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo]]

Spanish journalist Asun Gomez Bueno, who lost her husband to multiple sclerosis, told CNN: "The last four years of his life, (Luis) was totally paralyzed but kept his cognitive ability intact.

"There was no treatment to mitigate his pain. The pain was so terrible he didn't want to sleep at night because he knew the next day would worse.

"I don't want anybody else to go through the same hell he suffered. Euthanasia is a right that can only be requested by the person involved. It is a right, not an obligation."

The law, which will come into effect in June later this year, has made it legal for patients who have "serious, chronic illness with no chance of recovery and with unbearable suffering" to receive assistance to end their life.

Once effective, it will end convictions for those helping to end the life of an individual with such an illness. Doctors will not be required by law to take part in assisted suicide.

Featured image credit: Universal Images Group North America LLC / Alamy Stock Photo

Spain passes landmark euthanasia law