With a large majority – 253 votes in favor and 117 against – the House approved the law on assisted suicide. The provision will now pass to the examination of the Senate and, even if yours is a yes, also in Italy it will be possible to “voluntary death medically assisted with an autonomous act with which you end your life voluntarily, with dignity and awareness with the support and under the control of the National Health Service “(it is different from euthanasia, which requires the direct action of a doctor).
Among the opponents, Lega, Fratelli d’Italia and Forza Italia (except for some blue deputies, including Stefania Prestigiacomo and Elio Vito, Renata Polverini, Roberto Novelli, Matteo Perego). The favorable ones were Pd, M5s, Leu and a part of the Misto. The text of the law consists of 10 itemsand it was modified with some amendments. For example, in the original text, irreversible pathologies or a poor prognosis were foreseen among the conditions for achieving assisted suicide, but the approved text establishes that the requirements must be both irreversible pathologies and poor prognosis. The same is true for physical and psychological suffering.
Furthermore, according to the final text, the certificate of the attending physician or a specialist is sufficient, and those of both are not needed. Another amendment provides access to assisted suicide also for those who have “voluntarily interrupted” the path of palliative care (the original text provided that a path of palliative care was necessarily followed). It was also introduced the “criminal shield” for doctors, which cannot be punished for assisted suicide. In addition, assisted suicide was equivalent, by law, to death from natural causes.
Regarding conscientious objection, doctors and medical personnel can lift it, but public hospitals are required in any case to ensure that it is possible to exercise the right to assisted suicide. Control rests with the regions.
Other stories of Vanity Fair that may interest you:
-Legal euthanasia, Marco Cappato: “For the referendum, we are more than halfway there”
-End of life: Mina Welby and Marco Cappato acquitted for helping Davide die
Source: Vanity Fair
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