Mallorca, 1968. The historian Joana María Escartin was born. In 1989 he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and died on 30 May in his hometown, at the age of 56, coinciding with the international day of multiple sclerosis.

He studied at the UIB (Universitat de les Illes Balears), earned a PhD and was a professor of Economic History between 1996 and 2010, while the disease left him. “I have a very high level of pain. But I'm very optimistic and, for a lot of pain, I've been able to teach 100 students, because the love of my work has been stronger, because when I look at the students in the face and think that I was showing them some benefit, I forgot the pain," he said four years ago in an interview in Canal 4.

Outside the classroom he also worked on the research: He published more than 40 papers, “very innovative works,” according to UIB members. He studied mainly the economic development of the Balearic Islands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, emphasizing industrialization, living conditions, migratory processes and the role of women in the labor market. It was considered “feminist, socialist and republican” and a militant of the PSOE, which appeared on the island parliamentary lists in the May regional elections last year.

When in 2010 he had to abandon his work at university, he did not give up the divulgative work and gave much visibility to multiple sclerosis on social networks. A few months ago, she was diagnosed with cancer, and she reported in detail on the interventions and treatments.

The aforementioned interview with Canal 4 took place on the same day as the presentation of the euthanasia bill in the Spanish Congress in February 2020. “Euthanasia, like abortion, is an individual right, no one is obligated. That the reactionary right, the one that most resists these advances, resists pain.” He said he wanted to live, he was happy, “and I hope not to get there and, if you get there, not to confuse others. If I ever decide to end my life, I want a law that protects me.”