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.'
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