End of life, Sardinia has also approved the Liberi Subito law
Rights — di Simone Santi
End of life, Sardinia has followed Tuscany in approving the Liberi Subito law championed by the Associazione Luca Coscioni
End of life, Sardinia has also approved the Liberi Subito law
End of life, Sardinia has followed Tuscany in approving the Liberi Subito law championed by the Associazione Luca Coscioni
- After Tuscany, Sardinia has also approved an end-of-life law reflecting the rulings of the Constitutional Court.
- Patients requesting assisted suicide must receive a response within 20 days.
- The goal of the Associazione Coscioni, which drafted the Liberi Subito text, is to involve all of Italy's regions.
Sardinia is the second Italian region to have adopted an end-of-life law. The island's regional council has given final approval to the so-called Liberi Subito law, identical to the one already in force in Tuscany since February and born from an initiative by the Associazione Luca Coscioni, which has long fought not only for a national end-of-life law — still absent — but also for the legalisation of euthanasia.
Liberi Subito, we're now at two regions
Approvata la legge sul suicidio medicalmente assistito.
Il consiglio regionale ha approvato, a maggioranza (sì 32, no 19, 1 astenuto) la proposta di legge n. 59/A sul suicidio medicalmente assistito.
Il consiglio regionale ha approvato, a maggioranza (sì 32, no 19, 1 astenuto) la proposta di legge n. 59/A sul suicidio medicalmente assistito.
The Liberi Subito law approved by Sardinia sets out timeframes and procedures for medically assisted voluntary death: requests for medically assisted suicide may be made by people suffering from irreversible conditions, with physical or psychological suffering deemed intolerable, kept alive by life-sustaining treatments and capable of making informed decisions. The law provides for the establishment of a multidisciplinary medical commission that verifies the requirements within twenty days, guaranteeing free assistance and certified timeframes for access to treatment. "Sardinia thus becomes the second region, after Tuscany, to equip itself with this law of civilisation, aimed at preventing the recurrence of cases in which people have had to wait months, or even years, for a response while enduring unbearable and irreversible suffering," commented Filomena Gallo and Marco Cappato, respectively national secretary and treasurer of the Associazione Luca Coscioni.
The situation in the rest of Italy
Gallo and Cappato have the stated objective of securing approval of the Liberi Subito law in all Italian regions: the proposed legislation has indeed been tabled in every regional council in Italy, although the chances of approval naturally depend greatly on the current political complexion of each individual region.
Nell'infinita attesa di una buona legge nazionale sul #FineVita, anche @Reg_Sardegna dopo la Toscana approva la nostra proposta di legge regionale #LiberiSubito garantendo tempi e procedure certe per l'aiuto medico alla morte volontaria legalizzato dalla Corte Costituzionale.
'Assisted suicide', or more gently termed end of life, is in any case already legal (by virtue of Constitutional Court rulings, which have repeatedly expressed themselves on the patient's right, within certain limits, and on the need for a national law), but without any guarantees on timeframes or procedures for sick individuals and doctors.
As regards parliamentary proceedings, in recent days the Senate committee has returned to the proposed law already examined before the summer recess, which is however far more conservative than the Liberi Subito proposal in force in Tuscany and Sardinia: particularly controversial is the fact that the final say would rest with an ethics committee appointed by the government, and that the national health service would be excluded, with everything delegated to the private sector.