This has never happened before: the Italian Parliament is finally about to discuss a legal proposal on euthanasia and biological wills.

The proposed law will be debated in March and the announcement has been saluted with joy by civil society organizations that have long been campaigning for a law acknowledging "the right to die."

'Let us die in peace'

The debate on the right to die has been going on for years now. The issue was first raised by the story of Piergiorgio Welby, a poet and painter afflicted by muscular dystrophy, who bravely crusaded for his right to die his way.

The issue then went properly mainstream after the tragedy of Eluana Englaro (which arguably sparked a constitutional crisis in Italy): a pretty, wild-haired 21-year-old language student who had a terrible car accident in 1992 and spent the next 17 years in a persistent vegetative state in a hospital bed, while the whole of Italy argued over her fate.

To live to see the death of your child is possibly the most terrible thing that can happen to anyone, but Eluana's father, Beppino, also had to fiercely fight against Italy's most senior politicians and the Catholic church for almost two decades to allow his only child to pass away in dignity. In the end, Eluana was let free in 2009.

Seven years have passed but Italy is still very far from countries like Belgium, the Netherlands or Luxembourg, which have already introduced the right to a dignified death (that is, those who are terminally ill and, in the opinion of medical experts, experiencing unbearable suffering with no hope of improvement, may ask for euthanasia).

Ever since, hundreds and hundreds of people, either terminally ill or suffering from debilitating illness, have had to travel from Italy to Switzerland (and pay between 10,000 to 13,000 euros) in order to be freed from their pain and be granted a peaceful death.

Recent estimates show that there are as many as 200 "euthanasia exiles" each year. In the meantime, Max Fanelli - a man who was about to move to Africa to do non-profit work but became completely paralysed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - has now became the latest symbol of the battle for a just law on the right to die.

Bringing forward the debate

Civil society organizations have played a crucial role in furthering the debate on the right to die in Italy. The Associazione Luca Coscioni has been especially active on the issue, not only by proposing and promoting the popular law proposal on euthanasia and biological wills, which has been the basis for the current legislative process, but also through actions of civil disobedience.

This really is a life and death matter. Now the ball is in the politicians' court: has the time finally come for a law on the right to die in Italy?