Italy’s Constitutional Court has blocked a referendum on assisted suicide as it did not ensure “minimum protection of human life”, especially “weak and vulnerable persons”.

This week, the Italian Constitutional Court rejected a proposed referendum on the decriminalisation of assisted suicide after 750,000 signatures were registered last year – over the threshold for a referendum.

But Italy’s Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of protecting the vulnerable, who would become targets if assisted suicide was legalised.

Currently, assisted suicide in Italy is illegal, except in exceptional cases of “intolerable” suffering of those on life support.

This is not the end of the issue, however, as assisted suicide could still in theory be legalised through the Italian Parliament. 

Last week, Pope Francis spoke out against assisted suicide, as reported by SPUC. “Life is a right, not death, which must be welcomed, not administered”, he said. “This ethical principle applies to everyone, not just Christians or believers.”

SPUC comment

A SPUC spokesperson said: “SPUC welcomes the responsible decision of the Constitutional Court not to put vulnerable persons at risk from assisted suicide.

“As we have seen elsewhere, vulnerable groups, including dementia patients, psychiatric patients and poorly infants, can be killed on the assumption that they’d be better off dead.

“The so-called slippery slope is real, in the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada and other nations, where the threat of coercion and societal pressure being placed on vulnerable persons to die is very real.

“As Pope Francis has said, such ‘deviations… that lead to killing’ are simply ‘unacceptable’.”

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