Coma in Italy , Eluana Englaro dies

In the news lately has been the story of Eluana Englaro, who had been in a vegetative coma for 17 years, and the Italian Prime Minister who was trying to get the feeding tube re-inserted.

From the Guardian:

The Italian government has been plunged into a constitutional crisis over the fate of a 38-year-old woman who has been in a coma for the past 17 years. Eluana Englaro was left in a vegetative state after a car crash in 1992. After a decade-long court battle, doctors reduced her nutrition on Friday in preparation for removing her feeding tubes, which her father claims would be in accordance with her wishes.

But in an extraordinary turn of events, the country's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, after consultation with the Vatican, has issued an emergency decree stating that food and water cannot be suspended for any patient depending upon them, reversing the earlier court ruling. On issuing the emergency decree, Berlusconi declared: "This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I'm not a Pontius Pilate."

Justifying his campaign to save Englaro's life, the prime minister added that, physically at least, she was "in the condition to have babies" (my emphasis) .....

From the Timesonline. uk

Eluana Englaro, the comatose woman at the centre of a euthanasia debate that has divided Italy and sparked a constitutional crisis, died last night at the age of 38, four days after doctors began to remove her life support.
“May the Lord welcome her and pardon those who brought her to this point,” a senior Vatican official said.
The news of Ms Englaro’s death came as the Upper House of parliament began debating emergency legislation rushed out by the centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi. It would have ordered medical staff to restore all nutrients. She had been in a vegetative state for 17 years after a car accident.
Ms Englaro’s father, Beppino Englaro, had been fighting for a decade for a dignified end to his daughter’s life in accordance with what he and her friends have testified were her own wishes. At his request doctors at a clinic in Udine stopped feeding Ms Englaro on Friday.

Let us all make sure that our loved ones have written instructions if this ever happens to us.Especially if we are women of childbearing age.