After France, Italy is preparing to amend its legislation to legalise ‘assisted suicide.’ The debate has been ongoing for several years, and the coalition led by Giorgia Meloni must strike a difficult balance between reaffirming the dignity of life and the organised demands of terminally ill patients who wish to end their lives.
The Pandora’s box of euthanasia was opened in 2019 by a ruling of the Italian constitutional court, which ruled against the automatic criminalisation of euthanasia after the high-profile case of Marco Cappato, a politician who had taken a disabled person to Switzerland for assisted suicide.
The ruling created an unprecedented situation by deeming euthanasia legal, even though it remained prohibited under Italian law. The court ruled that the practice should be authorised for patients “kept alive by life-sustaining treatment and suffering from an irreversible condition that causes physical and psychological suffering deemed unbearable, but who are fully capable of making free and informed decisions.” The court also urged parliament to address the issue and draft a more permissive law.
The bill took a long time to draft. A compromise text was finally adopted on July 2nd by the Senate’s justice and health committees, paving the way for a plenary debate, initially scheduled for July 17th.
Article 1 of the bill states that “the right to life is a fundamental right of the individual” and that “the Republic shall ensure the protection of the life of every person regardless of age, state of health, or social condition.” That being said, Article 2 amends the penal code, which currently condemns anyone who “incites suicide,” “reinforces the suicidal intent of others,” or “facilitates its execution in any way.” But from now on, people who “facilitate its execution” will no longer be subject to criminal prosecution.
The bill emphasises the importance of palliative care, which must always be offered to patients as a first resort. It also specifies that neither the staff nor the resources of the national health service may be used in assisted suicide in order to avoid any abuse of the public system pushing for death for budgetary reasons.
The drafting of the bill has been the subject of heated debate. The large number of amendments to the initial text (more than 140, including around 100 put forward by the opposition) meant that the text was not ready by the July 17th deadline. The debates will therefore be postponed until September.
Left-wing and centrist parties (the Democratic Party, the Five Star Movement, and the Greens) criticise the bill, which they see as falling far short of the constitutional court’s recommendations. They particularly criticise the idea that the national health service is not involved in the process, as they see this as a way of preventing patients from easily accessing assisted suicide.
On the right, Fratelli d’Italia, Lega, and Forza Italia believe that the bill strikes the right balance. It was very important to them that the law did not establish a ‘right’ to assisted suicide but rather allowed for simple decriminalisation. The text merely regulates the conditions under which a person who helps another person to die can escape criminal prosecution.
As is often the case with highly sensitive social issues, MPs from each parliamentary group will be free to vote as they wish.
