Italy's lawmakers discuss "living wills" in wake of woman's death

Feb 10, 2009, 10:20 GMT

Rome - Following the controversial death of Eluana Englaro, a comatose woman at the centre of a right-to-die debate in Italy, lawmakers said Tuesday they would seek to introduce legislation on so-called 'living wills'.

Proposals mentioned differ in the extent to which people could use such documents to specify before their death what type of medical treatment they wish to receive.

The documents would be used in the event of a person falling into a permanent vegetative state, like Englaro's, and losing the ability to communicate their wishes.

The move followed a decision by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative government to withdraw a parliamentary bill it had specifically drafted in a bid to save Englaro's life.

The 38-year-old Englaro died on Monday night, four days after doctors, acting on a court order, removed tubes which had been supplying her body with nutrients and water.

The case of Englaro, who spent the last 17 years in a vegetative state after a car accident, has fuelled discussion in predominantly Catholic Italy over euthanasia and its legal technicalities.

'Now that Eluana is dead, I feel serene, because I did the right thing, which I'm not sure can be said of other people,' Berlusconi said in newspaper interview published Tuesday.

Berlusconi's barbed remarks appeared aimed at Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who refused last Friday to approve a government decree, which would have forced doctors to immediately reconnect Englaro's feeding tubes.

Napolitano's stance, which was supported by many in the centre- left opposition, prompted the government, in what it described 'as a race against time,' to seek parliamentary approval for a bill overturning the court order allowing the termination of Englaro's life.

Englaro's death - which occurred earlier than doctors had predicted - prompted angry scenes among lawmakers debating the bill.

Members of Berlusconi's coalition said that, by depriving Eluana of food and water, she had been 'killed.' They indirectly blamed Napolitano and the opposition for this.

In the newspaper interview, Berlusconi repeated the allegation, which has also been made by the Vatican and other Roman Catholic Church officials.

'Eluana did not die a natural death. She was killed while they were discussing whether or not the government's bill was constitutional,' Berlusconi told Milan daily, Libero.

Also on Tuesday, prosecutors in the north-eastern city of Udine, where Englaro died, said a 'routine' autopsy would be carried out to determine the exact causes of her death.

In July 2008, Italy's top appeals court, the Cassation, upheld a ruling in favour of Englaro's father and legal guardian, Beppino, who had engaged in a more than decade-long legal battle for the right of his daughter to 'die with dignity.'