WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #5-25: MY will be done. On the subject of end of life (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Every now and then, a piece of good news: the regional council of

Tuscany has approved the proposed law on end of life; Tuscany thus
becomes the first Italian region to introduce a regulation on this
matter. Specifically, seriously ill people who want to put an end to
their suffering will be able to count on certain times regarding the
procedure for applying to the ASL, as well as on the response methods of
the commission called to verify the existence of the requirements
established by the Constitutional Court so that the so-called "assisted
suicide" is not considered a crime. ---- The Radicals and the Luca
Coscioni association must be recognized for having supported this battle
with great tenacity, since the law approved by the Tuscany Region was
born precisely from their proposal for a popular initiative supported by
over ten thousand signatures. It should be remembered, in fact, that the
Constitutional Court clearly ruled in 2019 that, under certain
conditions, "anyone who facilitates the execution of the intention of
suicide, autonomously and freely formed, of a patient kept alive by
life-sustaining treatments and suffering from an irreversible pathology,
a source of physical or psychological suffering that he considers
intolerable, but fully capable of making free and informed decisions" is
not punishable, pursuant to Article 580 of the Criminal Code. The
reference was to the indictment of Marco Cappato who, in 2017, had
accepted the request of Fabiano Antoniani (DJ Fabo), who was left blind
and tetraplegic due to a car accident, to be accompanied to Switzerland
to perform euthanasia.

Tuscany thus meritoriously fills a legislative gap that remains at the
national level despite the importance of the topic and the debate on the
end of life that has lasted for at least twenty years. Let's think, just
to give a few examples, of the most famous cases: Eluana Englaro, Luca
Coscioni himself, Piergiorgio Welby.

Almost six years ago, the Consulta had expressly invited Parliament to
intervene by offering adequate legislative protections corresponding to
the constitutional dictate. But this invitation has always been promptly
ignored.

It is all too easy to explain the resistance of the Italian political
class. The reasons must be traced back, obviously, to the heavy
interference of the Catholic Church in the public life of this country,
perpetually hostage of the Vatican and its men.

Not only the Pope, the cardinals, the bishops or the priests, but also
all those politicians who, making themselves interpreters of the most
reactionary demands of Catholicism, do everything to hinder any measure
that could go in the direction of greater freedom and greater autonomy
of individuals.

On the other hand, the Tuscan path to the approval of the law has not
been all downhill, so much so that even within the ranks of the
Democratic Party there has been a lot of stomach ache, especially among
the councilors of Catholic background. The president of the region Giani
has however hastened to clarify that the text of the law (abundantly
amended) "simply wants to implement on an administrative level what the
ruling of the Constitutional Court tells us. Therefore, the ideological
debate on euthanasia has nothing to do with it".

But if politicians, especially clerics and fascists, want to avoid the
"ideological debate" (whatever that means), priests know their job very
well and go on the attack, without fear of ideology. "Enshrining the
right to die with a regional law is not a goal, but a defeat for
everyone," declared Cardinal Paolo Augusto Lojudice, president of the
Tuscan Episcopal Conference, adding a real call to mobilization: "To the
chaplains in hospitals, to the nuns, to the religious men and women, and
to the volunteers who work in hospices and in all those places where we
are confronted with illness, pain and death every day, I say not to give
up and to continue to be bearers of hope, of life. Despite everything."

It is quite clear that the most backward Catholic world will intensify
its terrorist action to prevent people from being able to decide, in
full freedom and awareness, how to live their lives. Because that is
what it is all about, after all, since choosing how and when to die
means - ultimately - choosing how and when to live.

The sacredness of life, in the religious conception, is something
completely detached from reality, from the living flesh of which we are
made. When priests speak of euthanasia or end of life, all reasoning is
tainted by an approach - this one ideological - that does not take into
account in any way the sensitivity of those who simply can no longer
tolerate the therapeutic obstinacy of a life that is no longer life.
The same goes for the right to abortion, constantly attacked by clerical
power to the point that counseling centers are closing everywhere and it
has become almost impossible to find doctors willing to perform
voluntary termination of pregnancy. Life is sacred, the priests tell us,
and the embryo is untouchable.

But they do not care about real life, they do not care about the life of
a woman who - simply - did not want, does not want, will not want to be
a mother. The priests who babble about what is right and what is wrong
do not care about anything other than the power to dispose of our
consciences, leveraging feelings of guilt, moral blackmail, constant
intimidation and the criminalization of freedom.

Supporting the right to assisted suicide or the right to abortion does
not mean being murderers. Just to be clear, and to understand who we are
dealing with, we must remember that an accusation of this nature was
reiterated, just a few months ago, by Pope Francis: "An abortion is
murder, it kills a human being, the doctors who lend themselves to this
are, if I may use the word, hitmen".

This is the level of discussion that we would like to drag ourselves
into, but we are too civilized to accept such vulgar provocations.

When we defend the right to self-determination, to the full availability
of bodies, health, life, sexuality and everything that has to do with
our intimate nature as human beings, we claim what more than anything
makes us human: freedom. A freedom that is not abstract but that is
realized in our being in the world, together with others. The pleading
eyes of a terminally ill patient confined to a bed, paralyzed and
without any hope, call us to a profound act of humanity and
responsibility. His suffering is ours, his will to free himself from
pain is ours, and there is nothing more sacred, for us, than the human
understanding of his condition and his desires.

If, therefore, the Tuscan case can constitute an interesting precedent
also for other Italian regions to guarantee, in the various territories,
the respect of a constitutional right, from our specific point of view
it remains essential to fight tirelessly against the cumbersome
influence of religious power on the social and political body, without
making allowances for any confession that claims to overdetermine our
existences and our freedom. The more we are able to keep attention high
on these issues, the wider the margins of action will be for the
expansion of the rights that can be recognized to us and the freedoms
that we will be able to take.

Alberto La Via

https://umanitanova.org/sia-fatta-la-mia-volonta-a-proposito-di-fine-vita/
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