Life at all costs? Italian social representations of end-of-life decisions after President Napolitano’s speech - margin notes on withdrawing artificial nutrition and hydration, Nutritional Therapy & Metabolism

The current development of nutritional, medical sciences and technology is a crucial part of an extensive strategy aimed to promote well-being and to ensure longer and longer lifetime in the wealthiest countries, but a particular kind of feeding, which, extending life, creates some moral and psychosocial problems. It is the practice of withholding and withdrawing artificial hydration and nutrition (AHN) that the Oviedo Convention suggests to manage through the informed consent and the advance directives like any other medical intervention, when it regards the end of life decisions. The article considers the Italian social representations of the end of life decisions, emerged by the social reaction to the speech of the President Giorgio Napolitano in 18 March 2014 on such a theme.