Legal battle continues around Italian woman in coma for 16 years

Aug 1, 2008, 10:16 GMT

Milan, Italy - A drawn-out legal battle in Italy is set to continue for a man campaigning to remove life support from his daughter who has been in a coma for 16 years.

State prosecutors in Milan on Thursday sought an injunction against a July 9 ruling by an appeals court in the city allowing for the removal of feeding tubes connected to Eluana Englaro's body since a 1992 car accident.

'It is not certain that Eluana is without consciousness and the issue of the irreversibility of her state has not been dealt with thoroughly,' prosecutors wrote in their injunction request.

The 34-year-old Englaro's case has fuelled controversy over euthanasia in mostly Catholic Italy where church authorities have spoken out against her father Beppino's wish to terminate her life.

The issue has also come before parliament with lawmakers in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition and centrist Catholic opposition parliamentarians, moving to block the appeals court ruling.

The upper house Senate was set Friday to vote on a resolution that says the Milan judges had no right to authorize the removal of the feeding tubes and that it was up to lawmakers to legislate on bioethical matters.

The lower house Chamber of Deputies, where conservatives also enjoy a comfortable majority, passed the resolution on Thursday.

In its July ruling the appeals court said proof had been provided of the 'irreversibility' of Eluana Englaro's 'vegetative state.'

Permission to remove the tubes was also granted because Englaro's father had provided evidence that, before the accident, she had clearly expressed the wish to die rather than being left in a coma or a vegetative state, the court said.

While voluntarily terminating a life is forbidden, Italy's constitution also grants patients the right to refuse medical treatment.

Beppino Englaro had seen several previous court rulings turn down his requests to end his daughter's life, who he says has been 'forced to exist' in 'inhuman and degrading' conditions.

Conservative lawmakers in Italy, backed by the Vatican, strongly oppose euthanasia on the grounds that life is sacred.

Pro-euthanasia activists argue that a terminally ill patient should have the right to refuse medication.

They are campaigning for legislation allowing the introduction of 'living wills' whereby people can state what type of medical treatment they wish to receive.