Assisted suicide could be legalized for people in England and Wales if a new bill passes the British Parliament. In Italy euthanasia is illegal while assisted suicide is possible thanks to a ruling by the Constitutional Court. But it is not yet regulated
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The House of Commons of the United Kingdom will discuss euthanasia for the first time in nearly a decade, after previous court challenges to change the legal ban failed.
Labor politics Kim Leadbeater will present one on Wednesday new bill which he would grant to terminally ill Of England e Wales a way for doctors to help them die. However, details will not be released until the end of the month, before Parliament votes.
The prime minister Keir Starmer promised that lawmakers will have a “free vote“, which means that they will not be forced to vote along party lines. Starmer supported a 2015 assisted dying law and said “there are reasons to change the law”.
“There is absolutely no mention of pressure on disabled or mentally ill people to end their lives who are not terminally ill“Leadbeater said in a statement.
He added that it is “important that the legislation is correct, with the necessary protections and safeguards”.
The right to choose at the end of life
Leadbeater’s bill will likely look like one assisted dying bill introduced in the House of Lords earlier this yearwhich has made only slow progress.
The unelected House of Lords studies and amends legislation passed by the elected House of Commons. While bills may originate in the House of Lords, they rarely become law.
The bill introduced in the House of Lords limits the assisted death for adults with six months or less to live e seeks permission from the High Court after a declaration signed by two doctorsamong other criteria.
Esther Rantzen she is the founder of a British children’s charity and is ill with lung cancer. He encouraged people to write to their local Member of Parliament, saying: “All we ask is the right to choose“.
Rantzen said that, lacking a legal way to end his life in Britain, he intends to travel to Switzerlandwhere assisted suicide is legal for foreigners.
However, the opponents of assisted dying, such as actress and disability rights activist Liz Carr, argue that there is no way to change the law without endangering vulnerable people.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide in Italy
At the moment in Italia l’euthanasia is illegalwhile thanks to a ruling of the Constitutional Court in 2019 it is possible to request the medically assisted suicide. There are some conditions: the person who requests it must be fully capable of understanding and wanting, must have an irreversible pathology leading to serious physical or mental suffering and must survive thanks to life support treatments.
The movement for the right to die in Italy was born in 2017when Fabiano Antoniani, also known as dj FaboAnd died voluntarily in a Swiss facility, three years after becoming blind and quadriplegic following a car accident.
He was helped by Marco Cappatoformer member of the European Parliament and current treasurer of theLuca Coscioni Associationwho then self-reported to the Italian authorities, starting a long judicial proceeding that ended with the historic sentence in 2019. Cappato was then acquitted.
At a national level, however, the ruling of the Constitutional Court it was never transformed into actual law.
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Assisted suicide in other countries
In assisted suicide patients take a lethal drug prescribed by a doctor. The process is legal in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and parts of the United States, with rules on qualification criteria varying by jurisdiction.
Naomi Richards, an anthropologist specializing in death and dying at the University of Glasgow, said that the number of people who could resort to assisted dying, if legalized in Great Britain, would be rather limited unless you push for broader access.
“These are questions that in a democracy will only be answered later,” he said.
Trudo Lemmens, professor of health law and policy at the University of Toronto, said Britain’s priority should be to address inequalities in healthcare across the UK.
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“What we’ve seen is that people are asking for medical assistance in dying because they feel like be a burden to others“Lemmens said, referring to Canada after it legalized assisted dying in 2016.
“Pressures inevitably increase to extend it beyond what has been legislated,” Lemmens said, “Countries should be extremely cautious on this point and thoroughly study what has happened in other jurisdictions before allowing end-of-life termination by doctors.”
