A 49-year-old Italian singer from
Sanremo who duetted with then Sanremo Song Festival director and
singer-songwriter Claudio Baglioni in an oratory in his home
town in 2018 has died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or
Lou Gehrig's Disease two years after voluntarily suspending
treatment for the terminal nerve-wasting disease.
Amedeo Grisi, who had had ALS or Motor Neurone Disease (MND)
since 2015, wrote that "we ALS sufferers are allowed to decide
whether to 'go ahead' by having a tracheotomy, which would mean
a tube in the throat and other tubes in the stomach to be fed,
nailed to a bed and with a hellish life expectancy, for two
years; otherwise the other possibility is that of stopping and
undergoing euthanasia. I chose the latter, because the first is
not in me and because the desire is to once more be free".
Grisi was happy about his duet with Baglioni but disappointed
that he did not get to tread the hallowed Sanremo stage at the
iconic Ariston Theatre.
"I apologize to all the more sensitive people for having
expressed this desire, but having aid that, now my time is up.
Will it be a month, two, a week? I'm ready. I'm sure that for
many I won't really go away. The power of music and love makes
us immortal".
Grisi recently published a book of poetry about his years of
suffering and hope.
Italy's Constitutional Court has ruled that a referendum on
making euthanasia legal was not admissible because it did not
protect the weak and vulnerable.
A bill on end of life issues will start being voted on in the
Lower House Thursday, but few right-to-die activists think that
it will legalize euthanasia in Catholic Italy.
The Vatican said Wednesday that medically assisted suicide and
euthanasia "are not forms of social solidarity or Christian
charity and their promotion does not constitute a spread of the
culture of healthcare and human pity."
It said "there are other paths for the medicine of incurable
patients and being close to the suffering and the dying",
reiterating what Pope Francis recently said about life and not
death being a right.
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