Patient's death fuels legal controversy

Some lawmakers have called for legal action against the doctor who disconnected the respirator.
ROME (AP) -- "Let me die," wrote Piergiorgio Welby, paralyzed and confined to his bed by muscular dystrophy and unable to eat, speak or breathe on his own.
A doctor carried out his wish, disconnecting Welby's respirator -- and with that move, reignited the debate over the right to die in predominantly Roman Catholic Italy, where euthanasia is illegal and can be punished by up to 15 years in prison.
Welby died late Wednesday at age 60 after suffering from the degenerative disease since his teens.
Three months earlier, he had pleaded with Italy's president to be allowed to die.
"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," Welby wrote to President Giorgio Napolitano.
Dr. Mario Riccio, who disconnected the respirator, said he acted out of respect for Welby's constitutionally guaranteed right to refuse treatment. Riccio said he felt "very serene" after the decision, and did not fear legal consequences.
"In Italian hospitals, therapies are suspended all the time and this does not lead to any intervention from magistrates or to problems of conscience," said Riccio, who volunteered to remove the respirator and was not involved in Welby's medical care.
What happened next
But some lawmakers called for legal action against the doctor.
Legislator Luca Volonte urged officials "to arrest those guilty of this murder, which is punished by the state's laws and which cannot remain unpunished."
The case has highlighted an apparent contradiction in Italian law: Patients have a constitutional right to refuse treatment, but the Italian medical code requires doctors to keep them alive.
The Vatican -- which maintains a strong influence on Italian politics -- vehemently opposes euthanasia, insisting that life must be safeguarded from its beginning to its "natural" end.
"The debate that was started will continue, and it is clear that a country, a government ... [must] take into account the great value of human life, and therefore reflect deeply on this case," Premier Romano Prodi said.
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