Italy’s Tuscany region adopts assisted suicide law

ROME: Tuscany on Tuesday became the first of Italy´s 20 regions to set out rules allowing assisted suicide, which the country´s top court legalised more than five years ago.

The measures were approved by the regional parliament by 27 to 13 votes, according to the chamber´s president Antonio Mazzeo.

The Italian Constitutional Court ruled in September 2019 that assisted suicide was allowed for patients “kept alive by life-saving treatments and suffering from an irreversible pathology, with unbearable physical and psychological suffering, but fully capable of making free and conscious decisions”.

Partly due to the country´s strong Catholic tradition, the national parliament has yet to adopt any legislation on the matter.