Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: under blackmail

This year I didn’t go to the XX national congress of the Luca Coscioni Association. My husband Stefano worked in the direction and I couldn’t remain without assistance. I was very sorry, because it is the first time after 2021, the year of collecting signatures for the referendum on legal euthanasia. But. I was asked to intervene in my ongoing legal battle to obtain the right to assisted suicide, according to ruling 242/2019 of the Constitutional Court. I spoke about it with pleasure remotely in front of friends and activists from all over the country, all committed, each in their own region, to obtaining a regional law that within the scope of sentence 242 improves the timing and enforceability for patients who fall within the parameters. With signature collections or pressure on regional assemblies, the volunteers of the “Liberi Subito” bill, with all the difficulties and setbacks involved, are achieving something. While in Umbria, everything is silent. It’s the tail end.

So what better opportunity to launch an appeal to my Umbria, as secular and progressive as it is obscurantist: Umbria, where are you on the topic of end of life? Nock If you are there.

I have already spoken about my legal battle with the competent local health authority in this column profound reasons that moved me and still move me. However, I have never spoken about the disappointment I feel every time news comes out in some Italian region of thousands of signatures collected, of a regional council taking action or at least discussing it, of individual regional councilors acting as spokespersons, even of governors of region who promote a discussion on the matter. I repeat: difficulties and impasses are everywhere, but the issue is no longer avoidable.

And then I return: My Umbria, where are you? The political color of the majority should not be a factor in a discussion on the matter, see the case of Veneto with Stefano Zaia; and in any case, I’m talking about a discussion, a simple discussion, regardless of the outcome, beyond the fact that tomorrow a beautiful law will be approved with all the trappings and applause for self-determination at the end of life. This is to make you understand that I am not deluding myself. But completely ignoring the topic?

Be careful, you will tell me, with all the international emergencies you can’t expect us to talk about such an uncomfortable and niche topic, the priorities are very different. But no, and I return stubbornly: this is called complexity, and whose task is it to govern complexity if not politics, even local politics?

Once at a television debate I met a councilor from the Umbrian league. Sensitive and very pleasant person. We were talking about disabilities. I took her backstage and immediately went to the topic she was interested in. She immediately replied that “no, it’s a huge and delicate topic, we need to think about it, we can’t give an answer like that, we can’t go on an emotional wave”. And I replied, but what emotional wave? Here I am, I’m here, I’m here alive and well in front of you, I’m not DJ Fabo or Eluana Englaro! Nothing, no response. I remember another time at the theatre, I met a parliamentarian from the Umbrian PD, a historical figure, highly esteemed. He knew my illness. He was very empathetic. He left me his mobile phone, gave me indications on the eligible subjects to be consulted in the regional council… After months of sending him my pieces on WhatsApp, nothing, no sign. In truth, there is a law proposal from a PD councilor, but it is not known and remains a dead letter. Nobody discusses it.

My multiple sclerosis is getting worse. Compared to that beautiful 2021 year of collecting signatures for legal euthanasia, I have lost many functions, parts of my body that no longer work. From the outside you might not notice it. But Stefano notices it well and my new assistants notice it when I show him the videos of 2021: damn Laura, how well you still moved, you had active arms, an active trunk, you were less tired and bent, with less pain and complications… I’m not feeling sorry for myself or depressed like I’ve said a trillion times, but the disease goes on. Do you know what else has changed? That if in that famous 2021 the idea of ​​being able to die was only theoretical, today unfortunately it is starting to become a real urgency, and Stefano also knows it, even if we talk about it with difficulty. I have a serious and irreversible illness, I am lucid and self-determined, the hands and bodies of the assistants are my life support treatments because without them I simply could not survive, these sufferings if we remain within the parameters of sentence 242 are becoming intolerable. I hope that day is as far away as possible, but today, I know I will. And I hope to be able to do it at my home, not to have to take my husband Stefano one day, and tell him “let’s leave for Switzerland“, with the risk, beyond the pain that one already imagines, of making him a criminal for the Italian state, guilty of aiding or inciting suicide.

This is why I took action and asked for a check of the health conditions as per 242. This is why I have been waiting for a year and a half. This is why I am facing a tiring legal battle with Filomena, Francesca and the others at my side, legal battle that is still all uphill and at the beginning. For this reason, and also for all the other sick people like me: I can wait, but if I had been in the place of Fabiano Antoniani, Davide Trentini, Federico Carboni, Fabio Ridolfi, Gloria, Elena and all the others: What would I have done while waiting? Who would take care of me? Who would respect my decision or at least who would discuss it? Of course, someone has to take responsibility. Exactly: in the absence of even a regional law on assisted suicide which is already possible without changes to the Constitution, because there is a ruling that is already applicable: how do we get out of this? I’m fighting because what is happening to me is what would happen to anyone in my condition: an infinite and lonely wait. Torture.

In these months, with the press calling me, with my face on the news and in all the newspapers, do you think the Umbrian legislative assembly has even talked about it at all?

More stories by Vanity Fair that may interest you:

– Stefano and multiple sclerosis: my appeal to Giorgia Meloni

• I Stefano and multiple scelrosis, a parenthesis of beauty
• I Stefano and multiple sclerosis: a signature for us and for you

– Stefano and multiple sclerosis: time for fresh air

–Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: we are also something else

-Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: violated intimacy

-Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: the contagion

-Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: it was like feeling free…