Eluana Englaro case and
the Italian Court
of Justice

 
A few people may recall the Diane Pretty case, 42 years old at that point, who was paralyzed from the neck to the toes, hardly could speak and was fed through a tube. She appealed to the British Court of Justice to have the right to die, assisted by her husband, but had her request denied by the Supreme Court of England, where euthanasia is illegal. In the judicial sentence, the judges stated that the Human Rights says “to live with dignity and not to die with dignity”. 

A similar situation has been seen in Italy these days with the young woman Eluana Englaro, 37 years old, 17 of them in coma. In July 2008, Eluana’s father obtained an injunction from the Milan Appeal Court, allowing her daughter to stop being fed artificially. The Ministry of Justice appealed against that permission but, last November, the Justice Court of Last Instance decided in the family’s favor, under the argument that the jurisprudence grants the patients the right to refuse a treatment, although the Italian legislation does not allow euthanasia. 

Until February 3^rd, according to Italian news, the judicial sentence had not been executed and the Italian government was inclined to make difficult its execution, as the decision would inevitably cause Eluana’s death. During an interview to one Italian television channel, the Cardinal Javier Lozano Barragán, a high-level Vatican official, considered that to allow the removal of Eluana’s feeding tube is a “monstrous and inhuman murder”, if taken further. ⁽¹⁾ 

It is hard to understand why the choice for euthanasia is seen as “to die with dignity”. 

And in this specific case, in which a daughter is in coma, should the father’s request be listened? To allow the daughter to die, by interrupting her feed, is not the same of killing her? 

The discussion of this topic will last for a long time, while is undeniable that in the materialist point of view, euthanasia constitutes a beneficial decision: it ceases the patient pain, finish the expenses with hospital, allow the family to rest and, according to the materialists, just accelerates something that is going to happen anyway, sooner or later. 

Thus, to discuss with the materialists about this subject is just a waste of time. 

However, the Christianism and the Spiritist Doctrine see the subject under a different perspective. 

The future life, ignored and despised by the materialists, is the axis of the Christian teachings. 

We came to Earth in a material body to evolve both intellectually and morally. A good education is as much valuable to the human development as to live in a jungle, observing native inhabitants. There are the ones who shine in the academy but there are also the ones who grow up in a bed hospital. 

Euthanasia, like suicide, is nothing more than a fugue, and like any fugue, is not approved by the spiritual powers that guide the planet. Nobody rewards a deserter, but is a human costume to reward a hero who falls down in the front under the enemy bullets. 

As opposed to the materialists’ thoughts, to die with dignity is to face all the difficulties of this hard existence with the eyes looking at the brilliant future that – doubt nobody – will succeed the tough moments of our journey. 

⁽¹⁾  Eluana passed away on February 9th and her death has been considered as an unmistakable case of euthanasia by many sectors of Italian society.