Anaesthetist helps Italian patient who wanted to die

Piergiorgio Welby, the terminally ill Italian man with muscular dystrophy who in an open letter to the Italian president pleaded for his right to die, has died.

A few days before Christmas, after a long battle against the illness, he was sedated by an anaesthetist, who unplugged the mechanical ventilator that had kept him alive against his will.

“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 …