Darsi la morte. Alcune riflessioni filosofiche su suicidio e suicidio medicalmente assistito

The concept of ‘medically assisted suicide’ has been recently introduced in the bioethical debate. In Italy, a recent verdict of the Constitutional Court has established a difference between helping and instigating suicide, thereby stating that in some clinical cases it is legitimate to help those who want to commit suicide. this way of considering the problem changes the standpoint and the theoretical framework on the suicide topic, which is placed in the medical context, and is at the same time confronted with both euthanasia and the remit of healthcare. In this thematic shift medicine is not called upon to explain or to contrast suicide—as in psychiatric and psychoanalytical practice and literature—but to facilitate it, although, under certain conditions. Indeed, such a kind of suicide would be in line with the so-called ‘rational’ suicide, based on the individual’s free and conscious choice, while other forms of suicide, to be hindered and restrained, would not enjoy this premise. here, we would like to consider whether it is legitimate, from the standpoint of an articulated philosophical reflection, to address the issue of medically assisted suicide with- out pronouncing on the moral legitimacy of suicide as such. on this evaluation will depend the possibility of considering assistance to suicide, regulated by legal procedures and medical proto- cols, either as a morally legitimate act or as a complicity that does not escape the logic of instigation, even admitting diverse forms of instigation, not all of which can be configured as assistance.