Mario Melazzini's Beautiful Life with ALS
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a debilitating and usually fatal neurological disease, is a common justification for seeking euthanasia in Belgium and the Netherlands, where it is legal. In Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal since 1997, about 8 percent of these deaths are of patients with ALS.
It is a terrible disease. It wastes the muscles of the legs, making victims unable to walk; of the arms, making it impossible for them to help themselves; and then of the diaphragm and chest wall, making it impossible to breathe without a ventilator.
But not everyone with ALS is suicidal.
It would hard to find a better example of this than the new chairman of the board of...
