Eluana Englaro

Eluana Englaro (born on25 November 1970In Lecco and died on9 February 2009In Udine ) was the19 January 1992Of a car accident that left her in an irreversible vegetative state . Beginning in 1999, testifying that she ” would have expressed the desire to die, if she were to fall into a coma “, her father took steps (especially in 2004, after twelve years of coma) so that her artificial feeding system Or disconnected.

Judicial course of application

After this request was refused by the Italian courts in 1999 and 2005 , it was finally recognized by the Milan Court of Cassation inOctober 2007Which was based on the Italian Constitution .

This situation is the subject of a controversy in 2008 similar to that which surrounded the case of Terri Schiavo . The scientific community is confronted according to Vatican sources ¹ , and the Vatican expresses its firm refusal of this decision, while many demonstrations, for and against, occur throughout Italy.

In July, the Milan public prosecutor appealed against this decision with suspensive effect, thus making it impossible to stop his care.

In January 2009, at the request of his family, the Administrative Court of Milan rescinded this decision, which had forbidden the healthcare staff to suspend the feeding of Eluana Englaro.

Government Intervention and Death

While neither the government nor the parliament had taken the time to legislate or regulate the end of life, the government of Silvio Berlusconi , on the eve of his death, suddenly took a decree-law in council of ministers, President Giorgio Napolitano refuses to sign because he considers it anti-constitutional ² . The Senate is then urgently seized of a bill and Berlusconi compares the Italian Constitution to the Soviet one.

Eluana Englaro arrived at the dawn of Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at the clinic “la Quiete” (The tranquility) of Udine , where doctors “will suspend his diet after having carried out for three days the necessary checks,” according to his neurologist Carlo Alberto Defanti.

The establishment of Udine had announced in January that it was ready to welcome Eluana Englaro. The process of euthanasia has continued despite pressure from the Catholic Church and the Vatican, the President of the Italian Medical Association, the government of Silvio Berlusconi , regional politicians and a fairly minority (In a recent survey, February 2009, 61% of respondents were in favor of stopping treatment).

On 9 February 2009 , the death of Eluana is announced publicly. The autopsy confirms that death is due only to the cessation of feeding. The various prosecutions against his father, for homicide and complicity, are unsuccessful in 2010.

Reactions and opinions

A year after the death of Eluana, M ^gr Rino Fisichella , president of the Pontifical Academy for Life , reflects on this event which, for him, ” tore our social fabric, especially because the population was not Properly informed “. He denounced ” a very sad page in our history: a young woman who is seriously ill but alive, has been deprived of food, dehydrated, exposed, contrary to what is said, to great suffering and to death “. And this has been made even more ” sad by the political instrumentalisation that has been made of it ” ³ . This reaction is that of most of the official Catholic world; It is counterbalanced by most secular associations, right and left, and by polls where the majority of Italians seem opposed to this vision. ^{[Ref. necessary]}

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