Mario chose to resort to assisted suicide and did so thanks to the support of the Luca Coscioni Association. The legal battle to have the right recognized was built around the sentence of the Constitutional Court which, at the end of 2019, expressing itself on the case of Marco Cappato and the death of DJ Fabo in a Swiss clinic, had defined “not punishable” who facilitates the execution of suicide. That pronouncement opened the breach in a huge regulatory vacuum that had so far forced Italian patients like Mario to remain imprisoned in pain or to go abroad to put an end to their lives.
Yes to assisted suicide, a historic turning point in Italy. “Relief, I’ll be the first”
federico capurso
With the sentence 242/2019, the judges of the Council for the first time had put on paper the criteria for access to treatment that leads to voluntary death: it must be an “autonomous and free decision”, it must concern patients who receive ” life-sustaining treatments ”therefore people suffering from“ irreversible pathologies that are a source of intolerable physical or psychological suffering ”. And in any case, only patients “fully capable of making free and informed decisions” should be considered. Just the case of Mario who, however, took many months to have the right to assisted suicide recognized.