Once driven by the principle of favor vitae, Italian legislation began to shift its focus with the approval of Law 219 (2017) which sanctioned the right of a patient to refuse or suspend life support therapies and treatment, despite the mortal consequences, and to receive the assistance of a physician to that end. After ruling n°207 (2018), of the Constitutional […]

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Dear friends of the Observatory, I founded the Observatory Cardinal Van Thuân fifteen years ago and have now decided to step down from the Presidency and leave it in the hands of others. During this long period of time the Observatory has contributed in a very effective manner to the spreading of the Social Doctrine of the Church, ever in […]

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Published below are the considerations of Dr. Stefano Martinolli, a surgeon, a bio-ethicist, and one of our Observatory’s collaborators. We would recall that regarding the legal aspects of the Constitutional Court’s ruling on assisted suicide, we have published the statement released by the jurist Pro, Marco Ferraresi (read here).   On 24 September 2019 the Italian Constitutional Court ruled that […]

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The Court had promised this a year ago (ruling n°207/2018), and has kept its promise. According to the Court, in the absence of a change (requested)in the legislation in force, present law cannot punish, always and in any case, whomsoever facilitates the suicide of others. This is a matter lawmakers should have attended to, but, in the mind of the […]

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