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Italy: Constitutional Court recognizes right to suicide

In Italy, on 25 September, the Constitutional Court recognized the right to assisted suicide. Hitherto prohibited by law, the help given to a sick person who wants to end his life is no longer a crime. This is a turning point in the social order of the country, which nevertheless gives rise to violent controversies.

This decision of the Court was not well received by everyone. But for many Italians, it's progress. The subject is so sensitive that the political class does not survive. Italian law is pretty basic: any help for suicide is punishable. But cases of assisted suicide have increased in recent years for people with serious irreversible conditions.

Recently in a lawsuit, a man is tried for helping a famous DJ to end his life. DJ Fabo became blind and quadriplegic after a road accident. At his request, a friend had taken him to a Swiss clinic where assisted suicide is practiced. He had then self-denounced in Milan, hoping to stir up a legislative initiative.

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But no political group wanted to venture on this slippery terrain: too risky. Assisted suicide is a subject that divides even political families. With the decision of the Constitutional Court, the Italians gained a new public freedom, even if their elected representatives had not been able to legislate as they should have done.

The influence of the Church

For the media, the demarcation line between pro and anti-assisted suicide goes through the Vatican . The Episcopal Conference has repeatedly said that it does not want it. Pope Francis reminded him again a few days ago in Rome. On the same wavelength, the association of Catholic doctors announces that 4,000 practitioners are systematically conscientious objectors. If they had to help a patient die.

Prime Minister Conte declared to him that " as a jurist and Catholic " he did not believe that there exists a right to die. Several Christian parliamentarians have denounced the risks of abuse of any new law on assisted suicide, with the risk, according to them to arrive then to the right to euthanasia, an act still absolutely prohibited in Italy. For the federation of doctors, finally, it will be necessary for the judges themselves to make the order to " practice assisted suicide " because otherwise they will not, by deontology.

Parliament obliged to legislate

The judges have left a lot of questions unanswered and a law is needed to clarify who can decide to help a suicidal patient. Will the public health system take care of the intervention and with which medicines? We touch on the death, the life and the profound philosophical convictions of each one. It should be difficult for parliamentarians to agree, as the points of view are hardly irreconcilable. It seems everyone wants a law, but nobody wants to write it.

►Also read: Italy: for a former health official, the government is "antiscience"

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