Clarity and precision in legal language: Linguistic-discursive analysis of Organic Law 3/2021 on the regulation of euthanasia in Spain.

Spain has recently regulated the practice of euthanasia through the Organic Law 3/2021. The social relevance of this law clear, as it directly affects fundamental rights enshrined in the Spanish Constitution. The aim of this article is to examine the clarity and precision of the discourse with which the legislator refers to the context of end-of-life care. A linguistic-discursive analysis of the Organic Law 3/2021 is carried out using a mixed methodological approach. The data are categorized and quantified in order to detect potential designative and interpretative problems. We find argumentative inconsistencies in the preamble (n=2) and abundant problematic lexical-semantic choices (n=151) such as vagueness, ambiguity, euphemisms, improper epistemic expressions, evaluative adjectives, verbs of appreciation. Although a legal text must be sufficiently abstract given its generalizable nature, the euthanasia law presents a series of phenomena that affect its interpretation and are potentially negative for its procedural concreteness and effective execution. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement The authors received no specific funding for this work ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.