ROME, Feb. 10 (UPI) -- A comatose Italian woman whose right-to-die case divided her country died four days after her feeding tube was removed, an Italian lawmaker said.
On Monday the speaker of the Italian Senate announced the death of 37-year-old Eluana Englaro, who had been in a vegetative state for 17 years, then called for a moment of silence, CNN reported Tuesday.
When the silence ended, one legislator said Englaro "has not died -- she was killed," prompting other right-to-die opponents to join in with calls of "murderers."
Englaro died at a clinic in Udine where she was taken to have her feeding tube removed.
"Yes, she has left us," her father, Beppino Englaro, said.
The woman had been in a vegetative after suffering what doctors determined to be irreversible brain damage in a 1992 car crash. Her father fought for years to have her feeding tube removed, saying it would be a dignified end to his daughter's life.
Last year, a court ruled that the feeding tube could be removed, a ruling upheld in an appeal to Italy's high court, touching off heated debate on the right-to-die issue.
Pope Benedict XVI referred indirectly to the matter Monday, saying, "(The) sanctity of life must be safeguarded from conception to its natural end," The Times of London reported.
When Englaro's death was announced, the Senate was debating a proposal that would require physicians to provide nourishment to incapacitated patients, which would have forced doctors to resume feeding Englaro, CNN said.
