ELUANA ENGLARO DEAD

Eluana Englaro dead
Published: February 11, 2009


Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Itay's Health Minister has announced that long term coma patient Eluana Englaro is dead only four days after doctors began a "gradual" reduction in her food and water intake.
The announcement was made as the Italian Senate debated a bill that would have saved Englaro's life.

Although no cause of death has been announced, earlier news reports indicated that Englaro's intake of nutrients was being replaced with a heavy dose of sedatives. Palliative medication in high doses can cause a patient to die prematurely.

The news follows public statements by Englaro's physician that she has enjoyed almost perfect physical health during the 16 years following her car accident in 1992, which left her bedridden and in a minimal state of consciousness. She was 38 years old.

Although euthanasia is illegal in Italy and Englaro's body functions were not dependent on machines, her father received a decision from Italy's final appeals court in 2008 allowing him to remove hydration and nutrition in order to kill her. The ruling was based on the notion that food and water constitute "medical treatment," which can be withheld at the patient's discretion.

Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition International denounced Englaro's killing and expressed puzzlement at her quick death.

"To intentionally dehydrate a person to death dehumanises them because it denies them the basic care due to a human person. We turn them into an object," he told LifeSiteNews.

"Everybody deserves basic care, which includes food, fluid, and warmth as long as it is necessary to sustain life. This is not extraordinary treatment."

"We ask the question, how did she actually die? She wouldn't have died in just a few days of dehydration," he added.

Vatican press office director Fr Federico Lombardi said in a statement that Eluana was "a person who we loved much and who in the last months became a part of our lives," Zenit says.

"Now that Eluana is at peace," he said, "we hope that her case, after so many discussions, will be a motive for serene reflection and a responsible search for the best way to accompany the weakest, with love and careful attention, with the due respect for the right to life."

He quoted Pope Benedict who on Sunday called for the care of those "who can in no way take care of themselves, but depend entirely on the care of others."

"But the physical death is not the last word for Christians. In the name of Eluana, we will continue to seek the most effective path to serve life," he concluded.

The Italian bishops, who had repeatedly asked that Eluana be kept alive, expressed their "great pain" at the death of the Italian woman. They said they hoped her death unites "those that believe in the dignity of the person and the inviolable value of life, above all when it is defenseless."

The bishops added, "We call all not to flag in this passion for human life from conception until natural death."

Euronews reports some Catholic activists have called for an autopsy. They fear that doctors may have tried to accelerate her death before a law passed forcing them to start feeding her again.

In another story, the Korean Catholic Church did not oppose the removal of a respirator from a terminally ill comatose grandmother.

Park Jung-woo, spokesman for the Life and Ethics Committee at the Archdiocese of Seoul of Catholic Church said that "extending painful treatment just to extend time waiting for death is meaningless."



http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=11668