Luca Coscioni

Luca Coscioni

Luca Coscioni ( Italian pronunciation ^{? / I} ) (* July 16, 1967 in Orvieto ; † February 20, 2006 ibid) was an Italian politician of the Radicali Italiani who advocated freedom in the field of genetic research. He was the founder of the Associazione Luca Coscioni , of which he was president from 2001 to 2006. His political commitment was shaped by the disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , from which he eventually died.

Life

Coscioni studied economics and was a lecturer in environmental economics at the University of Viterbo . He was also interested in politics and was elected to the local parliament in his hometown of Orvieto. After contracting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1995 while preparing to take part in the New York City Marathon , he resigned his public office but returned to politics after four years. He ran on the lists of the ultra-liberal Radicali Italiani in local and regional elections. In 2000 Coscioni was elected to the party's coordination council and in 2001 became its chairman. From that year on, he had to rely on a speech synthesizer to make himself understood. He ran as the top candidate of the Lista Bonino in the Italian parliamentary elections. After the election to parliament was unsuccessful, he founded the organization Associazione Luca Coscioni, which advocates freedom of scientific research . In 2004 she was instrumental in the later failed referendum against Italian law No. 40, which restricts research in the field of stem cells .

Coscioni's concern, shaped by his illness, was above all the freedom of research, especially in the areas of therapeutic cloning and gene therapy . This started a discussion in Italy on these issues, where liberal opinions stand in stark contrast to the morality of the Catholic Church .

Web links

• www.lucacoscioni.it Website of the Associazione Luca Coscioni (Italian)