Right-to-die case in Italy turns into political crisis

[MissHoneychurch]

Berlusconi tries to get politics in the private life ... like Bush tried with Terri Schiavo


A right-to-die case that has split Italy turned into a political crisis when the country’s president refused to sign his decree ordering doctors to keep a comatose woman alive. The Vatican, which believes that stopping feeding the woman would be tantamount to euthanasia, sided with the government and criticised President Giorgio Napolitano.

Eluana Englaro, 38, has been in a coma since a car crash in 1992 and has been called "Italy’s Terri Schiavo“ -- the American who spent 15 years in a vegetative state and was allowed to die in 2005 after a long court battle.

This week Englaro’s father, who has battled his way through Italy’s courts for more than 10 years, took her to a new hospice that agreed to stop nutrition after several other clinics refused because they feared retaliation.

...

Doctors at the clinic began withdrawing food and water on Friday in line with that ruling.

But Berlusconi’s cabinet quickly issued a decree barring doctors from stopping nutrition, effectively over-ruling the country’s top judges.

"It’s a never-ending torment,“ said Beppino Englaro, the woman’s father.


http://www.welt.de/english-news/article3163452/Right-to-die-case-in-Italy-turns-into-political-crisis.html