The Bioethics Committee publishes the first opinion on assisted suicide

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The National Bioethics Committee has published the first opinion on medically assisted suicide. Although within the Committee the opinions are different, the document intends to "carry out a reflection on the aid to suicide following the ordinance n.207 / 2018 of the Constitutional Court".

The reference is to the case of Marco Cappato and "to the suspected constitutional illegitimacy of article 580 of the penal code". Despite the emergence of "divergent positions", the Committee wanted to draw attention to the "difference between medical assistance for suicide and euthanasia" in the opinion.

The opinion of the National Bioethics Committee, the document reads, intends to "provide elements of reflection to serve the choices of a society that intends to address an issue, such as that of aid to suicide, which presents a series of problems and questions to which is not easy to give a single answer ". Hence the need to clarify, distinguishing the suicide assisted by euthanasia and providing useful elements to face a very difficult and delicate debate together with the need to "reconcile the two principles, so bioethically relevant, of safeguarding human life from a side, and the autonomy and self-determination of the subject on the other ".

Euthanasia is defined in the document as an act whose aim is "to anticipate death on demand in order to remove suffering" and in this sense "can be placed within the more general case of consenting murder". Assisted suicide differs from euthanasia because "it is the person who performs the last act that causes his death, an act made possible thanks to the decisive collaboration of a third party, who may also be a doctor", but not necessarily. The problem, it is noted in the opinion, is that "in the Italian legal system a specific discipline of the two practices is absent", ie euthanasia and assisted suicide, both treated as "aspects of the general figures of crimes against life".

Lorenzo d'Avack: I support it, but the document is pluralist
Making things clear: this is the strongest motivation and motivation that led the National Bioethics Committee to publish the opinion on medically assisted suicide: "those who voted in favor, like me, indicated the reasons why it would be appropriate", said said the Chairman of the Committee Lorenzo d'Avack to Ansa, who drafted the opinion with Stefano Canestrari, Carlo Casonato, Antonio Da Re and Laura Palazzani, with the contributions of Marianna Gensabella, Maurizio Mori, Tamar Pitch, Lucio Romano, Luca Savarino , Monica Toraldo di Francia and Grazia Zuffa.

"It is not an opening to assisted suicide, but - he said again - I would like it to be a useful, highly documented tool that can help the legislator make decisions. We wanted to clarify and expose all the arguments, pro and versus".

Here are the shared recommendations
"The Committee - despite the divergent positions developed within the debate - has reached the formulation of some shared recommendations, first of all hoping that in any forum - including the parliamentary one - the debate on medical aid for suicide will develop in full respect for all opinions in this regard, but also with due attention to the moral, deontological and juridical constitutional issues that it raises and with the due in-depth analysis that requires a theme so lacerating for the human conscience ".

The Committee also recommends "the commitment to provide adequate care for those suffering from incurable suffering; it requests that adequate information given to the patient regarding treatment and palliation possibilities be documented within the health care relationship; It is essential that every effort be made to implement information for citizens and health professionals of the regulatory provisions concerning access to palliative care, and hopes that a broad participation of citizens in the ethical and legal discussion on the subject will be promoted and promoted biomedical and psychosocial scientific research and bioethical training of health workers in this field ".