Euthanasia calls get louder in Italy

The issue of euthanasia is making the headlines in Italy over a woman who has been in a coma for 16-years.

It follows a move by state prosecutors to appeal against a Milan court ruling allowing her family to remove the feeding tube that has kept her alive.

Eluana Englaro, 37, has been in a vegetative state since being hurt in a 1992 car crash.

Now the Italian parliament has passed a resolution saying judges have no right to decide such matters. But some politicians are calling for clear legislation.

Antonello Soro of the Democratic Party said: “there needs to be a law to cover the final part of life, to avoid the judicial vaccuum that exists at the moment, that leaves judges lacking the legal framework with which to deal with these problems.”

The judges say Eluano’s coma has been proven irreversible and that before the accident she had stated her preference to die rather than being kept alive.

But the Vatican has criticised the ruling, calling it a mistake.

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