ROME – For more than a year, media reports have been constantly updating the Italian people on the journey of a 44-year-old man known only as “Mario” as he sought to end his life. by doctor-assisted suicide. Paralyzed 12 years ago in a traffic accident, “Mario” faced a series of legal, bureaucratic and financial hurdles in her pursuit of death.
On Thursday, “Mario,” first identified by his real name, Federico Carboni, took his own life, becoming the first legally-assisted suicide at his home in the port town of Senigallia, in central Italy.
Brother Carboni, an unmarried truck driver, is surrounded by family, friends and people who have helped him achieve his goals, including officials from the Luca Coscioni Association, an advocacy group right to die has supported Mr. Carboni for the past 18 months and announced his death.
At a press conference Thursday afternoon, Filomena Gallo, the association’s national secretary, read the letter Mr. Carboni wrote last month.
“I can’t deny that I regret leaving my life, I would lie and lie if I said otherwise because life is wonderful and we only have one,” the letter read. “But unfortunately it turned out like that.”
Mr. Carboni fought even as his health deteriorated, Ms. Gallo said. “Federico wants to exercise his freedom of choice in Italy, and he is aware that his protest will be a right, a freedom, exercised for all,” she said.
Carboni’s case highlights a series of contradictions and constraints of Italian law that right-to-die activists have challenged for decades in a country home to the Roman Catholic Church, where the Roman Catholic Church is located. have a significant influence on bioethics.
An Italian court ruling has stated assisted suicide is allowed in Italy under certain limited circumstances, but there is no law regulating the practice which, for Mr. late.
If possible, terminally ill Italians could go to Switzerland to end their lives, but it’s an expensive and, in most cases, physically challenging journey.
Marco Cappato, treasurer of the Coscioni association, said that when Carboni was first contacted two years ago, he was planning to go to Switzerland to end his life. Instead, he decided to stay in Italy. “These two years of perseverance and determination” allow Mr. Carboni to boast of being “the first person in Italy to receive medical assistance for a voluntary death,” said Mr. Cappato.
In 2017The Italian parliament has passed a law giving adults the right to make decisions about their end of life medical care, including provisions under which they can refuse life-saving and life-sustaining treatment, including Artificial nutrition, hydration and ventilation.
In a landmark ruling in 2019, Italy’s Constitutional Court held that assisted suicide cannot be considered a crime as long as certain conditions are met.
The court has been asked to rule on the indictment of Mr Cappato, who, in 2017, helped a blind and quadriplegic man on life support to a Swiss clinic providing life support services. assisted suicide. Mr Cappato was charged in a Milan court with abetting suicide, which carries a sentence of up to 12 years.
The Constitutional Court has ruled that in some cases assisting someone cannot be criminalized as long as the person asking for help meets four conditions: they must be of full intellectual capacity and have a terminal illness that causes severe and intolerable physical or psychological suffering. They must also be kept alive by life-sustaining treatments.
Cappato’s supporter, Fabio Antoniani, known as DJ Fabo, met the conditions so that Mr. Cappato could not be charged.
The court has urged the Italian Parliament to pass a law combining these principles and lawmakers are debating one, but until then the court’s decision remains valid.
Even with that precedent, Mr. Carboni still struggled to gain access to a doctor who assisted in suicide. He was forced to repeatedly challenge the medical officials of the court where he lived, so that he could be seen by doctors and members of the regional ethics committee, who could verify his state of health and mind and finally sign his plan, which is subject to the Constitutional Court’s ruling.
Mr. Carboni’s case reflects the legal invalidity in Italy when it comes to such matters.
Earlier this week, Fabio Ridolfi, a 46-year-old man who had been paralyzed for 18 years, died in palliative care after asking for prolonged suicide assistance. After lobbying for months – even released a heartbreaking video last month asked the state to help him die – he refused further treatment. He passed away on Monday.
The Roman Catholic Church firmly opposes assisted suicide and suicide, which it has called Acting “in essence evil” “In any situation or circumstance.” Pope Francis has reiterated this point many times, although he is more nuanced when it comes to aggressive medical treatments.
Even the National Bioethics Committee, which informs governments and medical institutions on a wide variety of issues, cannot provide a consensus opinion when check the problem a few years ago.
A law allowing certain cases of assisted suicide in line with the Constitutional Court ruling was passed by the lower house earlier this year (with just over half of the 630 house lawmakers present). to vote), and it is currently being discussed in the Senate.
As such, the proposed law, Mr. Cappato said, discriminates against terminally ill patients who fail to comply with all four prerequisites for assisted suicide, just as cancer patients do not receive life support. . “In the Netherlands, more than 60 per cent of deaths are in terminal cancer patients not attached to machines,” he said. “To exclude such cases from assisted suicide is to discriminate against one in three.”
Critics of the proposed law say it could force end-stage patients to undergo tracheostomy or other procedures solely for the purpose of accessing assisted suicide.
Furthermore, the proposed law does not establish any time limits for decisions. “Clearly, terminal patients don’t always have time to wait,” Cappato said in an interview earlier this month.
With the national elections less than a year away, some proponents of the legislation say senators could try to thwart passage of the legislation so that the next Parliament will have to start from scratch.
Annamaria Parente, chairwoman of the Senate committee where the legislation is being discussed, said she had appealed to have it passed quickly. “It is an obligation to move forward,” she said.
Some lawmakers denounced Mr. Carboni’s choice. Mario Adinolfi, national president of the Family People party, warned of “destructive and deadly madness” that would lead to “the slaughter of the incurable”, the ANSA news agency reported. .
In his farewell letter, Mr. Carboni reminded family and friends not to be sad. With the Coscioni association, “we defended ourselves by attacking and we attacked by defending ourselves, we have created an important milestone and part of the history of our country and I am proud. and honored to be on your side,” he wrote.
Don’t cry, he added. “Now I’m finally free to fly wherever I want.”
