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On Saturday the Daily Mail ran a poll with the question, “Should ‘minimally conscious’ patients be allowed to die? As of this writing (on Saturday), 29% said No, 71% said yes. I have to wonder though, if the people who clicked Yes had given much thought to the form of the question. Something I learned as a lobbyist paying close attention to various pieces of legislation is to always look very closely indeed at the pages of the bill that give the definitions of terms. What does it mean to be “allowed to die”? And what, exactly, are we talking...

July 13, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The lower house of Italy’s parliament has voted to prohibit the starvation and dehydration of patients in a move that is seen as a response to the killing of Eluana Englaro in 2009. In a 278-205 vote recorded in secret, the Italian Chamber of Deputies voted to approve the bill, which prohibits “all forms of euthanasia and all forms of assistance or aid for suicide.” The law provides for the creation of Anticipated Declarations of Treatment (DAT), which are also known as “Living Wills.”  DATs will allow patients who are unconscious or otherwise unable to...

Rome, Italy, Feb 10, 2010 / 07:12 pm (CNA).- A year after the death of Eluana Englaro, known as Italy's Terri Schiavo, the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life is encouraging Catholics to defend life “from conception to natural death.” Recalling the case of 38-year-old Englaro, whose feeding tube was removed after being in a coma for 17 years, Archbishop Rino Fisichella told the magazine “Il Sussidiario” that the painful incident “tore our social fabric, especially because the people were not properly informed.” The Englaro case, he continued, was “a very sad page in our history: a girl who...

ROME, November 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The father of Eluana Englaro (known in the press as "Italy's Terri Shiavo"), Beppino Englaro, is making a name for himself as a euthanasia activist, and is continuing to claim justification for his successful decade-long court battle to have his daughter's food and hydration removed last year.  At the same time, according to a report commissioned by the prosecutor of Udine, the town in which she died, Eluana was in an "irreversible coma" at the time of her death.Eluana Englaro was an Italian woman from Lecco in northern Italy, who was diagnosed as being...

41 Catholic priests have been issued a formal warning by the Vatican for signing an open letter approving the removal of food and hydration of helpless patients like Eluana Englaro. Five months ago, in a letter composed by Fr. Paolo Farinella of Genoa, the group complained that a living wills law being prepared by Prime Minister Berlusconi's government excluded the possibility that food and hydration could be withdrawn from patients by doctors to bring about their deaths. Farinella, the author of the article "The right to live a duty to die," is a well-known supporter of euthanasia. Published by Micromega,...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- Eluana Englaro's father Beppino may be charged with murder in association with the starvation and dehydration euthanasia death of his daughter. After an international debate over whether she should be denied food and water, Beppino used the right he won in court to take his daughter's life. The disabled woman had been in a minimally conscious state since 1992, when she was involved in an automobile accident. Englaro ultimately died earlier this month after having part of her food and water denied to her through her feeding tube over a five day period. Now, pro-life groups...

Two "right-to-die" controversies have dominated headlines in Europe in recent weeks. The cases have highlighted sharp divisions in how the continent deals with its terminally ill. In Italy, the highest court ruled that feeding tubes could be removed from Eluana Englaro, a woman who had been in a vegetative state for 17 years. But the government — pressed by the Vatican — defied the ruling and tried to pass an emergency law that would prevent doctors from removing all life support from ailing patients. Englaro died during the Senate debate. In Britain, Debbie Purdy, a woman with multiple sclerosis who...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- A Catholic priest has returned the award he received from the president of Italy in protest of the nation allowing Eluana Englaro's father to subject her to a starvation euthanasia death. Father Aldo Trento, who works with severely disabled and minimally conscious patients like Englaro, is upset she was killed.Englaro had been in a minimally conscious state since 1992, when she was involved in an automobile accident. After four days earlier this month of partial starvation and dehydration, she died.Father Trento, a missionary at the Priestly Fraternity of St. Charles Borromeo in Paraguay, heads a...

Vatican: Food and water 'not medical treatment' says senior official Rome, 17 Feb. (AKI) - A senior Vatican official on Monday weighed into the euthanasia debate currently raging in Italy following the death of a comatose Italian woman last week whose feeding tubes were removed. President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Rino Fisichella, said that feeding patients is not a medical treatment but an inalienable human requirement. "Food and water are not medical treatment,"Fisichella stated." "Thousands of doctors and scientists share our belief that food and water are not medical treatment but an essential requirements for life which...

ROME, February 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Italian legislators are said to be quietly dropping a proposed measure that would have prohibited the withdrawal of food and hydration from comatose patients after the death of Eluana Englaro. While Eluana herself was being buried in a Catholic ceremony in her native village of Lecco, the Italian government turned its attention to pending legislation on "living wills" that many fear will usher in a legal situation that will make cases such as hers more common. Direct euthanasia remains illegal in Italy, but the removal of food and hydration remains a contested issue,...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- Eluana Englaro, the disabled woman who was killed via a starvation and dehydration euthanasia death on Monday, will receive a Catholic burial today. Meanwhile, a Catholic doctors' group is condemning her death saying that her father was wrong to seek a court ruling to kill her. Englaro will be buried today in a Christian ceremony despite the wishes of her father. Beppino Englaro had originally wanted Eluana cremated but he gave in to the wishes of other family members. Beppino was not a believer and his daughter's suffering reinforced his lack of faith, but the London...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- The results of the autopsy conducted on Eluana Englaro following her euthanasia death via starvation and dehydration claim no wrongdoing. The autopsy reveals no signs of foul play even though Englaro died quickly from the withdrawal of food and water as opposed to dying over a two week process as Terri Schiavo did.Englaro died on Monday following four days of staff at her medical center denying her nutrition she had received from a feeding tube.The disabled woman had been in a minimally conscious state for 17 years following an automobile accident at the age of...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- The log from the medical center whose staff began the process of starving and dehydrating Eluana Englaro to death shows it took its toll on the disabled woman quickly. Englaro suffered from the effects of the withdrawal of food and water more rapidly than similar patients and died faster as well. “Monday afternoon, temperature rises. Mucous membranes dry. Nurses spray lips with water droplets," the log read on Monday. A few hours later, Englaro died. The Italian daily newspaper Corriere Della Sera says a "distress log" accompanied Englaro's medical records during the final days of her...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- Local authorities and officials in the Udine region of Italy are unsure whether the medical staff who removed Eluana Englaro's feeding tube will face any hearings or charges in connection with her euthanasia death. Englaro died on Monday after four days of starvation and dehydration.Her death was ordered by an Italian appeals court after her father Beppino had spent the better part of a decade fighting to take her life.Englaro was expected to live two weeks but she succumbed to the starvation after only four days. Prior to the removal of her feeding tube, national...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- In the day following the euthanasia death of Eluana Englaro, the disabled woman in a similar condition as Terri Schiavo, top political leaders are blaming one another for her death. Meanwhile, the Vatican has responded to Englaro's death and the Catholic Church says patients need more protections.Englaro died on Monday after four days of partial starvation and dehydration after a medical clinic agreed to follow a court order allowing her father to take her life.On Tuesday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Englaro was "killed" and blamed President Giorgio Napolitano for her death because he...

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- The neurologist for Eluana Englaro, the disabled woman who has become the center of an international debate over whether she should be killed via euthanasia, says she is healthy. All of the medical tests conducted prior to Friday's stoppage of food and water reveal a healthy patient. Englaro was injured in an automobile accident in 1992 and has been in a minimally conscious state ever since. Her father recently won the legal right to kill her by removing her feeding tube.Carlo Alberto Defanti, who is overseeing the withdrawal of food and water, made the comments...

Rome, Italy -- After an international debate over whether she should be subjected to a painful starvation and dehydration death, Eluana Englaro has died. The disabled woman had been in a minimally conscious state since 1992, when she was involved in an automobile accident.

Rome, Italy (LifeNews.com) -- Bob Schindler understands the pain of a father who saw his daughter change from a woman full of life to a seemingly lifeless person plagued by the effects of a severe medical condition. Although it may seem hopeless, Schindler urged the father of Eluana Englaro not to give up on his daughter's recovery.

ROME (AP) - Italy's health minister declared Sunday there were problems with the clinic hosting a woman in a hotly debated right-to-die case, as the government appeared to be trying a new tactic to keep her alive. Minister Maurizio Sacconi also said the "La Quiete" clinic in Udine isn't the hospice or hospital facility called for by the Milan appeals court, which has ruled that Eluana Englaro's feeding tubes can be removed. Englaro, 38, has been in a vegetative state since she was in a car accident 17 years ago. Her doctors have said her condition is irreversible. Her father...

When the President of Italy refused to sign a decree delaying the dehydration death of Eluana Englaro--who some call the Italian Terri Schiavo--it seemed to seal her doom. But now the Prime Minister has moved up an emergency session of the Parliament. We'll see how that plays out. But the point of this post is the attempt, yet again, to make death by dehydration seem benign. From the story: Doctors quoted in the leading daily Corriere della Sera said the process leading to Englaro's death would become irreversible within five days. Englaro, now 38, has been in a coma...