Italian Woman in vegetative state to be allowed to die: AP »
Posted By gamahuche 9 months, 1 week ago in FamilyEluana Englaro, who is at the center of Italy's right-to-die debate was transferred Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2009, to a hospital where she is to be allowed to die after 17 years in a vegetative state. Englaro was moved to the northeastern city of Udine overnight, said family lawyer Vittorio Angiolini. Her father has led a protracted court battle to disconnect her feeding tube, insisting it was her wish.
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gamahuche
"I would rather be a square peg than fit in a pigeon hole" -
an essay which won me the "Lamb Essay Prize" at the Religious ...
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gamahuche9 months, 1 week ago
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I heard this story on the BBC last night, including a long intervew with her father. This has been a huge cause celebre in Catholic Italy, naturally, where the law does not allow euthanasia.
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I would very much recommend listening to the BBC broadcast here and especially to hear what her father says and how he says it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/outlook/2008/01/...
Though the AP story compares this situation with that of Terry Schiavo there seems to be a fundamental difference - that in that case it was a fight between individual relatives, whereas here it is between the family and interest groups who are not personally connected to Eluana Englaro. -
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gamahuche9 months ago
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Absolutely the quandary of a lifetime.. As the father of one daughter I cannot imagine what this family has been through - and to deal with the impact of this decision in Italy, which has one of the strongest Catholic communities in the world AND is home to the Pope has been an extyra level of torture. Again I can only urge anyone who is touched by this story to listen to the BBC programme.
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Candida9 months ago
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I think part of the reason why such decisions are so difficult is that people refuse to think clearly when it comes to life and death. Emotions and religion take over instead of logic, which is understandable on the part of the relatives, but others should keep their emotions and religion to themselves.
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There is a huge difference between killing someone, assisting someone to commit suicide, or letting someone die of natural causes or an accident without interfering in the process, especially if that is the person's expressed will. Where does it say in the Bible or in any religious text that we have to keep people alive no matter what, even in a vegetative state, and against their own wishes? Perhaps God meant to take this person away and people just interfered 17 years ago.
This is a side issue, but I'm convinced that only part of the people who are so upset about letting someone die after having kept the person artificially alive for many years are equally upset when people are killed by bombs. Didn't Italy send troops to Iraq to kill Iraqis for no good reason at all? If I remember correctly, it was the same pious government too.
I don't want to belittle the difficulty in this decision; it must be hard to let a loved one go, but it must also be hard to watch a loved one day after day as he/she is lying there as a living dead. Once the family has made its heart wrenching decision, others should simply stay out of it. I know that if I ever got to a point that there were no reasonable expectation to return me to some sort of quality life, I wouldn't want any heroics. I not only wouldn't want to live for years on respirators stuffed full of tubes, but I wouldn't even want to be resuscitated if I happened to die "momentarily." I made this very clear to my relatives, and I expect them to respect my wishes and others to stay out of it. Sometimes it's letting people die that shows respect for life and human dignity.
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Newperson9 months ago
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This has got to be one of the hardest decisions the familey will ever have to make my heart goes out to this person and the familey.I feel there comes a time when and if no more can be done it is the familey that should be allowed to make such a decision.
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hamy9 months ago
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I have been part of a similar situation. My father was in a nursing home and at 63 was incapable of any quality of life. He couldn't speak, feed himself, move his limbs, or communicate in any way. He was going to be put on a ventilator and a feeding tube. Luckily he had made a living will and we had to make the decision to stop feeding him through a tube. It was heartwrenching. It was agonizing. He lived for 4 days without food or water and when he passed, he went peacefully. He smiled as he went though. He knew he wouldn't be trapped in that body for years while people he didn't know fought to keep him trapped. He knew he was free. It is disgusting to me that such a horribly difficult decision is mired by people who are not involved. Those people should be ashamed.
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Tangent0019 months ago
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I'm confused. It would seem the religious contingent would encourage the desperately sick to join God and the atheist contingent would want the sick to cling to their one and only span of life as long as possible, yet the opposite is the case.
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It seems the religious would prefer to have the soul trapped within a shell of a body for as long as possible for the sake of a 'natural' death. Can you imagine a fully cognizant 'soul' imprisoned within a body unable to move, react or communicate? If that isn't hell, I don't know what is. -
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latyngodess9 months ago
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I really don't understand people sometimes. The poor woman is lifeless, is being on a bed for 17 years tubed and medicated. Why can people accept life for how it is?
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Sometimes life isn't fair, but that's the way it is. I think they should of let her go naturally. Why extent the pain for so long. She couldn't live a normal life by her self, how could they make her suffer this way?
I know it must be a really hard decision, but would anyone wanna live their life this way?
God bless her!! -
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