In the Sicilian Regional Assembly, Forza Italia has tabled a regional bill that even the PD supports. The Lega is showing openness and looking to what has happened in Veneto. And even from FdI, there are signs of a glimmer of hope.

The regional president and Luca Zaia’s successor, Alberto Stefani, had promised the Patriarch of Venice and Salvini’s party that he would stand firm. In the end, the end-of-life bill was passed, and within the party there is talk of a ‘U-turn’. 

Despair, loneliness and the feeling that ‘we can’t cope’ lie outside this scope – a scope of attention and resolve. Often, this is also due to the misguided prejudice of those who believe that, in the decision to take one’s own life, that feeling of ‘we can’t cope’ has nothing to do with it.

In the black hole between Camus’s philosophical question and regionalised end-of-life care, all serious debate has vanished. What remains amidst Zaia’s volatility and the Church’s all-too-frequent ‘neither-nor’ stance?

The Veneto region regulates the timeframe and procedures for assisted suicide, but the Constitutional Court has already set precise limits on regional legislation. And whilst the health service struggles to guarantee care and support for the most vulnerable patients, the crux of the matter remains a political decision that does not address the shortcomings in patient care.