Euthanasia, more than one million signatures for the referendum

• Euthanasia: possible to exceed one million signatures

• Euthanasia, leaves from Rome and Milan to collect signatures for the referendum

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23 September 2021 More than one million Italians have signed the Legal Euthanasia Referendum, two weeks after the signatures are delivered to the Court of Cassation, scheduled for 8 October. 

The goal of 500,000 signatures required for filing has therefore doubled, with 640,621 paper signatures collected at tables throughout Italy and 372,000 online via digital signature. This was announced by Filomena Gallo, Secretary of the Luca Coscioni Association. 

In the same hours, the Referendum Promoting Committee officially completed the certification of the minimum required threshold to be delivered to the Supreme Court in order to call the Referendum.

In fact, 513,540 signatures are already accompanied by a "certificate of registration in the electoral lists" and therefore ready for filing (311,540 paper and 202,000 digital). Meanwhile, the association reports, the work to certify the other signatures collected continues until the date of filing, scheduled for 8 October.

This is "an extraordinary result that comes exactly 15 years after Piergiorgio Welby's letter to President Giorgio Napolitano asking for euthanasia. It was September 23, 2006 and the then President of the Republic replied hoping that the issue would be addressed in the most Well, from that moment on, the Parliament was unable to meet even for a moment to discuss it ", said Filomena Gallo, recalling that" to ask the reason for this silence after 15 years, Mina Welby, President of the Luca Coscioni Association, was went to Montecitorio, reminding the Parliamentarians of the time spent without respecting either the recall of President Napolitano, nor the rulings of the Council and not even the slightest discussion on the proposed law of popular initiative on the end of life ".

"The news of the one million signatures reached and the 500,000 ready for delivery represents an important milestone. The referendum on legal euthanasia is the only tool we have available after a long time to affirm the principle of self-determination of the person and guarantee the possibility to decide their own end of life. Without the discrimination that still exists today ", concluded Filomena Gallo.