Doctors announce death of woman at centre of Italian “right to die” case

Eluana Englaro, the 38 year old Italian woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for the past 17 years, died earlier this week just three days after artificial hydration and nutrition were withdrawn in accordance with a decision by a Milan court.

The case caused an unprecedented institutional conflict in Italy, after the president of the republic, Giorgio Napolitano, refused to sign an emergency decree unanimously approved by the government to prevent her death.

The centre right majority struggled to rush through a new law “to save the life of a woman who could even bear a child …