This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It will not be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/europe/7878270.stm

The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Right-to-die bill before Senate Italy Senate debates right to die
(about 2 hours later)
Italy's Senate is due to debate an emergency decree to stop doctors withdrawing the life support system from a comatose accident victim. Italy's Senate is set to debate an emergency government decree to stop doctors withdrawing life support from a woman in a permanent vegetative state.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, backed by the Vatican, drafted the decree last week, but President Giorgio Napolitano refused to sign it. PM Silvio Berlusconi drafted the decree last week, but President Giorgio Napolitano has refused to sign it.
This fuelled a political row over the right of Eluana Englaro - who has been in a coma for 17 years - to die. Doctors at a private geriatric clinic in Udine have withheld food from Eluana Englaro since Friday. She has been in a coma since a 1992 car crash.
Ms Englaro's family won a court battle last year to remove her feeding tubes. Doctors said her "path to death" would be irreversible by the end of the week.
Eluana Englaro, now 38, has been in a coma since a car crash in 1992. "We are proceeding with the total suspension of artificial nutrition," Dr Carlo Alberto Defanti, Ms Englaro's neurologist, told the Ansa news agency on Sunday.
Doctors at a private geriatric clinic in the northern city of Udine quoted by local media said they had begun withholding food last Friday and a lawyer said her family would continue moves to allow her to die. Dr Defanti described her condition as "stable", but said she was being given sedatives to calm muscle spasms.
On Sunday, one of the doctors said her condition was "stable, and we are proceeding with the total suspension of artificial nutrition", according to Italy's Ansa news agency. Giuseppe Campeis, a lawyer for Ms Englaro's father, Beppino, said: "We are continuing with medical procedures aimed at ensuring a gentle death."
The case has provoked fierce debate in the country. Medical experts quoted by the Corriere della Sera newspaper said the process should become irreversible within three to five days. Another report said it could take Ms Englaro about two weeks to die.
Euthanasia is illegal in Italy and Mr Berlusconi is supported by the Roman Catholic Church. Court battle
Pope Benedict XVI has described euthanasia as a "false solution" to the tragedy of suffering. Beppino Englaro has been battling with the courts in Italy to let his daughter die since 1999, insisting it was her wish.
'Irreversible' process Italy does not allow euthanasia although patients can refuse treatment
Last week, President Napolitano said Mr Berlusconi had acted unconstitutionally when he issued the emergency decree to prevent the woman's life-support machine from being disconnected. In July, a court in Milan ruled that doctors had proved Ms Englaro's coma was irreversible. It also accepted that, before the accident, she had expressed a preference for dying over being kept alive artificially.
He accused Mr Berlusconi of over-ruling a previous court decision to allow Ms Englaro to die. State prosecutors appealed against the ruling, but the Court of Cassation in Rome ruled the challenge inadmissible in November.
Mr Berlusconi, who has a parliamentary majority, said an emergency session of parliament would enact a new law barring doctors halting nutrition to patients in a coma. The Italian health ministry subsequently issued an order barring all hospitals in the region from withdrawing Ms Englaro's life support, but this was overruled by a court in Milan on 21 January.
According to medical experts quoted by the Corriere della Sera newspaper, the process should become irreversible within three to five days. Ms Englaro was previously cared for at a church-run hospital in Lecco, but was transferred to La Quiete geriatric clinic last week, after it said it would receive her and allow her to die.
Another report said it could take Ms Englaro about two weeks to die. The move provoked outrage from the Vatican, whose health minster described it as "abominable" and tantamount to murder.
Last year, her father won a court battle allowing her to die. He said that before the accident, she had expressed a wish not be kept alive artificially. Pope Benedict XVI described euthanasia as a "false solution" to the tragedy of suffering.
'Irregularities'
In a last minute move on Friday, Prime Minister Berlusconi drew up an emergency decree with the support of the Vatican to prevent doctors withdrawing her feeding tubes.
President Napolitano (left) said Mr Berlusconi had acted unconstitutionally
But President Napolitano refused to sign it on the grounds that the government could not arbitrarily overturn a legal ruling and that such a sensitive issue had to be fully debated by parliament.
Mr Berlusconi, who has a parliamentary majority, subsequently said parliament would enact a new law barring doctors halting nutrition to patients in a coma.
The Senate is expected to hold a vote on the matter on Tuesday, while the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, could take up the bill as soon as Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Maurizio Sacconi said on Sunday that the government believed La Quiete clinic was not qualified to help Ms Englaro die because it was primarily a rest home for the aged.
"The Milan appeals court spoke of a hospice or a sanitary structure, while here all we have are rooms on loan," he said. "It's an irregular situation."
Mr Sacconi also said he had sent a team of health inspectors to the home to investigate "irregularities" and observe Ms Englaro's care.