When Englaro's death was announced late Monday towards the end of the debate, those who were against the court order said, 'Someone let her die! Someone killed her!', according to Marco Perduca, a Senator for Italy's Democratic Party.
"This is certainly not the case," said Perduca, citing the successful court petition by Eluana's father to pull her feeding tubes. "The suspension of these therapies provoked what Eluana and her father wanted-- that is, [for her] to finally rest in peace," he said.
Before Eluana's car accident in 1992, she had spoken to her family about the issue of life support because a close friend had been in a car accident. The right-to-die issue was also in the news after a famous Italian skier had had an accident. She told her family that she did not want to be kept on life support, according to Perduca.
"But her father didn't want to respect his daughter's will just like that. He wanted to have legal support, so he started a legal fight 14 years before," said Perduca. Euthanasia is illegal in Italy.
The issue of the right-to-die, especially in Italy, is a highly sensitive topic. The government believes that 'depriving' someone of food and water via doctor-prescribed feeding tubes is effectively "starving them to death," according to Perduca.
"And so given the power that the Berlusconi faction has within the public and private media, you can imagine the way in which the entire issue has been portrayed," he said.
The Berlusconi government has been quite effective in swaying the public over the past six years with media campaigns that identify those who believe in the right-to-die as "killers", said Perduca.
The Vatican has also stepped into the euthansia debate, calling the right-to-die a 'sensitive issue', while pro-choice advocates believe this is a 'civil rights issue.'
Perduca said that in Parliament, there is no clear-cut divide through political parties. "We also have people belonging to the centre-left coalition who are in favour of whatever the Vatican says, so I wouldn't say it's black or white," he said.
The government has repeatedly tried to trump the judicial decision when it has ruled in favour of euthanasia, a move that is unconstitutional, said Perduca.
"Every time there is a sentence, if the government has a different opinion, they would like to impose their own opinion on that of the judges. That already happened in July also on this issue," he said. "When you have the sentences of the court, it cannot be changed by another decision taken by the government," he added.
In 2004, the Vatican opposed stem cell research and in vitro fertilisation and those rights were largely struck down, according to Perduca.
"There is this imposition of what they call value, and I would say it's a dogma and ideology that wants to limit freedoms that are constitutionally recognized by our own Magna Carta," said Perduca.
While the Eluana Englaro case has brought up the debate again, pro-decision lawmakers such as Perduca are pushing for a series of draft bills to be passed that would legalize the so-called 'living will'-- an issue Perduca hopes is voted on within the next two weeks.
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