Eluana Englaro, a 38-year-old woman who has been in a vegetative state since a 1992 car accident, died late Monday night, four days after her feeding tubes were removed. ?Yes, she has left us,? her father, Beppino Englaro, told state news agency ANSA. ?But I don?t want to say anything, I just want to be alone.?
Eluana had her feeding tubes removed Friday, three days after she was transferred from the hospice that treated her for 17 years to a clinic that agreed to let her die. She was expected to survive for 12-14 days without the tubes.
Mr. Englaro won a series of court decisions over the past two years that allowed him to let his daughter die. He has received criticism from the Vatican, conservative politicians and many people in the heavily Catholic country, where a recent poll found that 47 percent of the population believed she should live and 47 percent believed she should be allowed to die.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had issued an emergency decree Friday forcing doctors to reinsert the feeding tubes, but it was rejected by President Giorgio Napolitano because it overrode Italy?s highest court. On Monday, Berlusconi was in the process of pushing a bill through Parliament that would forbid the feeding of people ?unable to take care of themselves? to be suspended.
