Today marks a turning point in the Italian political and civil panorama. The Veneto Regional Council has officially approved the popular initiative law on the end of life, transforming the Veneto territory into the fourth regional reality in the country to adopt specific legislation, but above all the first administered by the centre-right.
The approval process
The provision precisely establishes procedures and times for regional healthcare assistance for medically assisted suicide. The vote recorded 32 votes in favour, 5 abstentions and 14 against, marking the conclusion of two days of intense debate. Veneto thus joins Tuscany, Sardinia and Emilia-Romagna, welcoming the requests arising from the popular initiative project Free now.
The legislative process has been complex. In the last legislature, during the session of 16 January 2024, the text was sent back to the Fifth Council Commission, chaired by Manuela Lanzarin, after the lack of green light on the first articles. Represented in the current legislature, the provision has been revised to accommodate the findings of the Constitutional Court and the additions of the executive.
The details of the legislation between clinical guarantees and national perspectives
The approved structure establishes the absolute priority of access to palliative careimposing the obligation to adequately inform each applicant about these clinical opportunities. To evaluate each individual case, the figure of the is introduced palliative care specialist with strengthened opinion within the medical commission, supported by the establishment of a Regional Bioethical Committee appointed directly by the Council with the task of drawing up the territorial guidelines. The legislation also protects the full freedom of conscientious objection of the doctors involved, inserting the Venetian path in the wake traced by the sentences of the Constitutional Court.
The words of Luca Zaia
Commenting on the outcome of the session, Luca Zaia underlined the importance of the legislative process completed to protect patients:
With this law, within the framework of legal legitimacy, a procedure is essentially approved that is responsive to the management, as far as possible, of any patient who has the OK from the ethics committee. It was right to give this answer to those very few patients who show up.
During his speech, Zaia highlighted the national scope of the provision and the numbers of the phenomenon on the regional territory:
I hope it is not a message of defiance, but rather to say ‘let’s avoid having 50 different laws in Italy and that Parliament has an additional level of legitimacy to deal with a national law’, which is what is needed.
The president of the Veneto Regional Council recalled that there have been 31 requests from 2019 to today and that only three have had the authorization of the ethics committee. The regulatory system has been enriched by a series of amendments aimed at balancing the protection of life and access to care pathways.
