'End of life, legalise all forms'. After the centre-right's basic text comes a popular bill

A popular initiative bill on the end of life is on the home stretch to join the basic text defined by the centre-right in the Senate and on which many criticisms, including those of unconstitutionality, are raining down from the opposition. The announcement came from the Coscioni Association: it is an initiative to legalise all forms of end-of-life, including euthanasia, which in just a few days has surpassed the 50,000 signatures required for filing in Parliament. Digital signatures - they explained - collected through Spid and Cie, to which are added more than 8,000 in the collection tables activated throughout Italy. The proponents' goal is to exceed the safe threshold of 70,000 signatures to be able to deposit the text by 15 July, in view of the discussion on the basic text that will resume in the Senate on 17 July.

The new Pdl provides for the National Health Service to take charge of verifying the patient's condition within 30 days of the request, with the possibility for doctors to participate on a voluntary basis. Throughout Italy, the right to 'assisted suicide' is already legal, under certain conditions," the association recalls, "thanks to Constitutional Court ruling 242/2019 on the Cappato-Dj Fabo case, but there is a lack of certain procedures and timeframes, and there are people who have waited even two or three years before getting an answer. Moreover, some patients are discriminated against because, due to their illnesses, they are unable to self-administer the lethal drug. "Today there are calls to extend the right also to euthanasia by a doctor. It is precisely on this aspect,' the association recalls in a note released by the association, 'that the judges of the Constitutional Court will express their opinion. On 8 July next, they will deal with the case of Libera, a 55-year-old Tuscan woman suffering from progressive multiple sclerosis and completely paralysed, in a public hearing. Despite having all the requirements to access assisted suicide according to ruling no. 242/2019, she is unable to self-administer the lethal drug due to her paralysis, and has asked for a doctor to do it for her," the note explained. "The Luca Coscioni Association's bill," the document goes on to say, "to overcome this discrimination provides for the possibility of choice by the sick person between self-administration of the lethal drug (already possible under certain conditions) and administration by a doctor (active euthanasia, which is currently prohibited in Italy).

It is precisely the exclusion of the National Health System from suicide assistance or its control, as well as the tightening of the access criteria with respect to those indicated by the Constitutional Court, that are fuelling the controversy over the basic text on the end of life deposited by the rapporteurs in the Senate. Meanwhile, the Justice and Social Affairs commissions of Palazzo Madama, awaiting the response of the Constitutional Court, have postponed the deadline for amendments from 8 to 9. Against the exclusion of the National Health System the oppositions go on the attack, contesting, in particular, the privatisation of suicide assistance, which could only be requested in private clinics. A rule that would also have profiles of unconstitutionality, explained constitutionalist Stefano Ceccanti, because "it leads to the breaking of the equal treatment of people, including economic ones".