Right-to-die case reignited in Italy
A court granted a father's request that woman be allowed to die. Critics call it an execution.
ROME - A woman at the center of a right-to-die debate in Italy was transferred yesterday to a hospital where she is to be allowed to die after 17 years in a vegetative state. Anti-euthanasia activists heckled the ambulance crew that moved her, with some shouting, "Don't kill her!"
The Catholic Church and antiabortion activists have mounted a campaign to keep Eluana Englaro alive, denouncing what they say would be her execution. Others say Englaro's father is trying to give her the dignified death she had sought.
Her nighttime transfer reignited a national debate.
The Englaro case has drawn comparisons in Italy to that of Terri Schiavo, the American woman who was at the center of a right-to-die debate until her death in 2005. Schiavo's husband, who wanted her feeding tube removed against her parents' wishes, prevailed in a polarizing battle that reached Congress, President George W. Bush, and the Supreme Court.
In 2007, the Vatican joined the debate, condemning Schiavo's death as "arbitrarily hastened" and calling the removal of her feeding tube a violation of the principles of Christianity and civilization.
Last weekend, Pope Benedict XVI said that euthanasia was a "false solution" to suffering. His health minister, Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragan, told La Repubblica newspaper that removing Englaro's feeding tube "is tantamount to an abominable assassination, and the church will always say that out loud."
Englaro was transferred by ambulance to the northeastern city of Udine from Lecco, where she had been cared for, family lawyer Vittorio Angiolini said.
A group of anti-euthanasia activists heckled the ambulance as it left Lecco. Some shouted slogans such as "Eluana is alive!" and "Don't kill her!"
Englaro has been in a vegetative state since a car accident in 1992, when she was 20. Her father has led a protracted court battle to disconnect her feeding tube, insisting it was her wish.
An Italian court in the summer granted his request, setting off a political storm in this Roman Catholic country.
Her father sought to have her removed from the Catholic clinic in Lecco to Udine, in the region where the family is from. But the government issued a decree last month telling state hospitals that they must guarantee care for people in vegetative states, leading at least one hospital in Udine to refuse to take Englaro.
Eventually, the private facility La Quiete in Udine agreed to take her.
Angiolini declined to discuss what steps would now be taken to end Englaro's life. News reports said that the procedure to disconnect her feeding tube would begin in a few days and would take weeks to conclude.
Amato De Monte, the anesthetist who escorted Englaro on the ambulance, said she was very different from the youthful woman presented in the media.
He defended the clinic's choice in the face of mounting criticism, saying in an interview to RAI state television: "Eluana will not suffer, because Eluana died 17 years ago."
