Italy's "Million Dollar Baby" needs a coach
Yet in the US, his action was not necessary at all. Any competent adult can refuse any treatment. Furthermore, doctors are obligated to provide Comfort Care as they do so.
Thus, the character played by Hilary Swank could have died legally and peacefully just by asking her doctors to discontinue her ventilator.
Not so in Italy, where Judge Angela Salvio presented this confusing ruling: Piergiorgio Welby, now 60, whose body has been devastated by muscular dystrophy, does have a constitutional right to halt his treatment. Yet Italy’s medical code requires doctors to maintain the life of a patient.
The influential Roman Catholic Church teaches that life should reach its “natural end”; in this case, that end is frustrated by a feeding tube and a ventilator.
So poor Welby has no choice but to lie there... He is the one who really needs the Clint Eastwood character!
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A group of medical experts has since agreed that ventilator support is "ordinary" care.
Italy has no law providing for refusal of treatment by Living Wills.
The New York Times quotes as the patient as being in unbearable torture for not being able to remove medical treatment he does not want.
Dr. Mario Riccio, who had no previous part in his treatment, disconnected the respirator "out of respect for Welby's constitutionally guaranteed right to refuse treatment." Dr. Riccio said he felt "very serene" and did not fear legal consequences.
But some lawmakers called for legal action against the doctor, that murder should not go unpunished.
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