In the debate on medically assisted suicide the words weigh as boulders. Calling it “suicide” means betraying the nature of the choice: in fact, it is not a impulsive gesture but a lucid decision, dictated by extreme and incurable suffering. Adding “medically assisted” is not enough to neutralize a term that remains judgmental. Precisely we speak of a choice of end of life, towards an accompanied voluntary death.

In Italy, in the matter of end of life, law 219/2017 recognizes the patient the right to refuse or interrupt health treatments, also resorting to deep sedation. Since 2019, following the historic sentence of the Constitutional Court (number 242/19, case Marco Cappato/Fabiano Antoniani known as DJ Fabo), it is possible – in the presence of precise conditions – access the medically assisted suicide. These conditions are: irreversible pathology, intolerable physical or psychological suffering, dependence on vital support treatments and full ability to make free and aware decisions.

In Tuscany the first regulation to die in peace

During the course of the years, the Court has expressly asked Parliament to fill the legislative void with a clear rule but since then, between postponements, proposed proposals and political tactics, a national law has never arrived. Some regions – including Tuscany, first in Italy to approve a specific regulation to guarantee access to the help to voluntary death – have tried to intervene to reduce inequalities. But the absence of a unitary regulatory frame continues to produce uncertainty and injustice (in the photo below, Marco Cappato).

In this context, a new bill is overlooked whose basic text was adopted on 1 July 2025 by the commissions gathered justice and health, on the proposal of the majority speakers, the senators Pierantonio Zanettin (Forza Italia) and Ignazio Zullo (Fratelli d’Italia). But the text, expected in the classroom on July 17th, risks worsening the situation.

Thus the new bill adds uncertainty

The proposal defines support for suicide as a “free individual choice”, but denies that it is a right. The text emphasizes the inviolability of the right to life, but never mentions the patient’s right to therapeutic self -determination.

Article 4 of the proposal reads that the National Health Service “cannot use drugs or instruments” to implement assistance for suicide. In other words, the state admits the possibility, but offers no support. According to the speaker Zullo (Fdi), medically assisted suicide is not a subjective right but a “free individual choice”: therefore, it does not involve any performance by the public service. This exclusion opens a dangerous front: there is a risk of a parallel market of the end of life, without controls, standard, traceability. Without the involvement of the NHS, everything can slide towards private, opaque, potentially speculative initiatives, where access to dignified death will depend on income, on the territory, on contacts.

Condemned to suffer those who do not depend on machinery

In the text, moreover, an arbitrary bond is placed: only those who are already included in a path of palliative care can access the procedure. An exclusion that affects those who – although suffering from very serious pathologies – do not have access or have refused that type of path. The bill also confirms the requirement of vital support, excluding patients who suffer in an unbearable way, but do not depend on machinery. A restrictive reading that contradicts the clinical reality and the same address of the Constitutional Court. Already in 2018, the National Committee for Bioethics had reported that this criterion introduces an unreasonable and unconstitutional discrimination between the sick and had expressed itself with these words: “… considering dependence on vital support technologies necessary would create an unreasonable and unconstitutional discrimination between those who are artificially kept in life and those who, even if affected by pathology, also very serious and with strong suffering, I’m still “.

Assisted suicide: thus the center -right excluded public health

We put the case there is a patient with COPS (chronic obstructive chronic bronchopneumopathy), who lives dependent on oxygenotherapy 24 hours a day. The COPD is a progressive disease of the lungs, which makes it increasingly difficult to breathe. It mainly affects smokers or former smokers, but also people exposed to pollutants or dust for work. Those who are affected by it has the restricted and inflamed airways, and the air enters with difficulty in the lungs and even more effort comes out of it. The quality of life of this person is seriously compromised, but his will to interrupt the treatments is ignored because it is not yet attached to a mechanical fan. To consider the right to interruption of care only for those who are kept in life by more invasive technologies, and not for those dependent on supports such as oxygen, create unconstitutional discrimination between patients in similar conditions.

Assisted suicide only for a fee: all risks

To complete the picture, the proposal provides for the establishment of a national evaluation committee: 15 members (doctors, magistrates, bioethics experts) called to decide on a case -by -case basis: it is an additional bureaucratic filter that risks slowing down – if not hindering – an already difficult personal choice. The discussion in the classroom is scheduled for July 17, but outside Parliament it remains an urgent question: what sense does a freedom exercise that can only be practiced if you can afford it and without any guarantee that your will, your pain and your dignity is respected?

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