Eluana Englaro

Eluana Englaro (25 November 1970 – 9 February 2009) was an Italian woman from Lecco, who entered a persistent vegetative state on 18 January 1992, following a car accident, and subsequently became the focus of a court battle between supporters and opponents of euthanasia. Shortly after her accident, medical staff began feeding Englaro with a feeding tube, but her father "fought to have her feeding tube removed, saying it would be a dignified end to his daughter's life. He said that before the crash his daughter visited a friend who was in a coma and told him she didn't want the same thing to happen to her if she were ever in the same state." The authorities refused his request, but the decision was finally reversed in 2009, after she had spent seventeen years in the persistent vegetative state.

The case was debated in court and her father's request was denied both in December 1999 by the Milan Court of Appeal and in April 2005 by the Court of Cassation. A request for a new trial was granted by the Court of Cassation on 16 October 2007.

The Milan Court of Appeal declared on 9 July 2008 that Eluana's father and legal guardian Beppino Englaro was allowed to suspend feeding and hydration.

Some friends of Eluana testified that she had repeatedly stated that it would be better to die than surviving in conditions of complete unconsciousness. About a year before the accident that reduced her to a permanent vegetative state, Eluana was shocked by the news that a dear friend had a motorbike accident. She admitted that she had prayed that the boy could die in peace without any further suffering. Later, she discussed this with her parents and made them promise that, should something like this happen to her, they would never allow her to survive while remaining unconscious and without free will, totally dependent on the care of others.

Nuns caring for Eluana since 1994 in Lecco were willing to continue their usual charitable treatment, and they came to the point of asking the woman's father to leave the girl to them and forget her, stating that Mr. Englaro considered his only daughter as "dead", while they considered her "alive", without referring to Eluana's convictions. Mr. Englaro decided to move her to another hospital in order to have her feeding halted in accord with her previously expressed will.

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