Man who sparked Italy's euthanasia debate dies: report

Man who sparked Italy's euthanasia debate dies: report
ALESSANDRA RIZZO
Associated Press
ROME

A paralyzed man who touched off an intense debate on euthanasia in Italy has died just days after a court refused his request to let doctors remove his respirator, an official said Thursday.

It was not immediately clear how he died or whether an autopsy would be performed.

The leader of the small Radical Party, which had championed Piergiorgio Welby's cause, announced his death over the party's radio station.

"Piergiorgio Welby died last night," said Marco Pannella, the party's leader. "He achieved what he desired, what he fought for."

Mr. Welby, 60, had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy as a teenager. He was confined to a bed, attached to a respirator and communicated through a voice synthesizer. He was receiving nourishment through a feeding tube.

The case divided doctors and politicians, and gripped the public's attention in a country where the Catholic Church wields considerable influence.

Euthanasia is illegal in Italy, and the Vatican forbids the practice, insisting that life must be safeguarded from its beginning to its "natural" end.

In the past few months, Mr. Welby had made a plea to Italy's president, and appealed to Italian courts to have his respirator taken away.

"My dream ... my desire, my request ?- which I want to put to any authority, from political to judicial ones ?- is today in my mind more clear and precise than ever: being able to obtain euthanasia," Mr. Welby said in his appeal this fall to President Giorgio Napolitano.

On Saturday, a judge in Rome ruled that while Mr. Welby had a constitutional right to refuse treatment, Italian law does not permit the denial of lifesaving care. Therefore, Mr. Welby's request for the respirator's removal could not be granted, the judge said.

In another setback for Mr. Welby, a panel of Italian medical experts, the Higher Health Council, said Wednesday that a respirator does not constitute "extraordinary means" of keeping a gravely or terminally ill person alive and so need not be removed. But the panel, whose opinion is not binding, also decided that precise guidelines for doctors were needed urgently to spell out what the law allows and what it does not.

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to legalize voluntary euthanasia ?- where patients are killed at their request to ease suffering, even in cases where they might survive without treatment. Belgium legalized it under strict conditions in 2002.