Italy is floundering in the waters of a familiarly intractable problem. Euthanasia.
This is something every country has difficulty with, but here it is being played out in a peculiarly Italian fashion. The case concerns Eluana Englaro, a strikingly attractive girl who, 16 years ago was involved in a near fatal car accident. I say near fatal because she has been in a persistent vegetative state all that time. Her father wants the feeding plug pulled.
The lower court agreed, but the minister said this could not happen in a state run hospital. Yesterday Eluana was moved to a private hospital. The government, some say under pressure from the Vatican, others say sensing the mood in the more religious South from where it draws much of its support, rushed through a measure banning the removal of the feeding tube. The President, Giorgio Napolitano, a former communist, refused to sign the decree. The government threatens to return the measure to Parliament.
This is not the time to rehearse the arguments in favour and against. The attractiveness of Eluana has tilted the balance – pictures of her laughing face make you think it incredible that such a being could have its life terminated. One doctor, in favour of pulling the plug, reflected that public reaction might be different if they saw her now. Initially I thought it would have been best if the father quietly removed the tube, she died and then they just didn’t prosecute him. Certainly if there were any evidence that the girl were suffering that is what I like to think I would have done myself.
But there is no evidence that Eluana is suffering. And there is a further complication: removal of the feeding tube means it would take her 10 days to die. It cannot be done clandestinely, so the story is played out in the media on a daily basis, and on balance they have handled it sympathetically.
Loss of dignity? Sanctity of human life? I don’t know. What I do know is that if it were me I would be very unhappy about my daughter’s life being played out in public, without her ever knowing.
This is something every country has difficulty with, but here it is being played out in a peculiarly Italian fashion. The case concerns Eluana Englaro, a strikingly attractive girl who, 16 years ago was involved in a near fatal car accident. I say near fatal because she has been in a persistent vegetative state all that time. Her father wants the feeding plug pulled.
The lower court agreed, but the minister said this could not happen in a state run hospital. Yesterday Eluana was moved to a private hospital. The government, some say under pressure from the Vatican, others say sensing the mood in the more religious South from where it draws much of its support, rushed through a measure banning the removal of the feeding tube. The President, Giorgio Napolitano, a former communist, refused to sign the decree. The government threatens to return the measure to Parliament.
This is not the time to rehearse the arguments in favour and against. The attractiveness of Eluana has tilted the balance – pictures of her laughing face make you think it incredible that such a being could have its life terminated. One doctor, in favour of pulling the plug, reflected that public reaction might be different if they saw her now. Initially I thought it would have been best if the father quietly removed the tube, she died and then they just didn’t prosecute him. Certainly if there were any evidence that the girl were suffering that is what I like to think I would have done myself.
But there is no evidence that Eluana is suffering. And there is a further complication: removal of the feeding tube means it would take her 10 days to die. It cannot be done clandestinely, so the story is played out in the media on a daily basis, and on balance they have handled it sympathetically.
Loss of dignity? Sanctity of human life? I don’t know. What I do know is that if it were me I would be very unhappy about my daughter’s life being played out in public, without her ever knowing.
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