A pro-life group on Monday filed an appeal against a controversial court order which would allow doctors to remove the feeding tube from a woman who has been trapped in a permanent vegetative state for almost 17 years.
The appeal, presented at the Milan appeals court, is the latest attempt by pro-life activists and Catholics groups against a definitive court ruling in the case of 38-year-old Eluana Englaro.
The ''Solidarity, Freedom, Justice and Peace'' Association urged the court to review the case and called for new medical evaluations on Englaro's presumed ability to swallow.
According to the association, the court should carefully consider the stance taken by neurologist Giuliano Dolce who told Catholic daily Avvenire last week that Englaro retained her ability to swallow when he examined her in January.
Dolce warned that ''before artificial nutrition is suspended it is absolutely necessary to evaluate the residual capacity of her swallowing reflex with a special radiological exam''.
However, the president of the Italian Society for artificial Nutrition and Metabolism, Maurizio Muscaritoli, has said that the hypothesis that Englaro could be fed naturally was ''highly improbable''.
''It's highly unlikely that a person in a permanent vegetative state for many years could retain the ability to swallow to the extent that she could guarantee her nutritional requirements,'' Muscaritoli said.
''It also strikes me as very unlikely that, were the possibility to exist, nobody has realised in 17 years,'' he added.
A lawyer for the Englaro family said the pro-life group did not have a ''legal foundation'' to lodge the plea, adding that it was probably just ''a filibustering'' action.
The European European Court of Human Rights has also weighed in on the case, ruling last week that an appeal by pro-life groups against the landmark ruling by Italy's supreme court was ''inadmissable''.
November's definitive right-to-die ruling from the Cassation Court has split Italy, with Catholic politicians and the Vatican claiming it authorises euthanasia and libertarians hailing it as a victory for individual liberty.
Beppino Englaro, who has fought for more than a decade for a dignified end to his daughter's life, has yet to find a clinic willing to remove his daughter's feeding tube and allow her to die.
The Lombardy region, where Eluana is cared for by nuns at Lecco's Beato Luigi Talamoni clinic, has always refused to offer clinics or health workers to help Eluana end her life.
A publicly-assisted clinic in Udine in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region has offered its services, but a last-minute guideline issued by Health Minister Maurizio Sacconi stating that the removal of feeding tubes from patients in a vegetative state was ''illegal'' has so far halted her transfer from Lecco.
A stalemate remains in place after the Udine clinic asked regional authorities to back its decision following Sacconi's comments, while the region insists the issue is a private matter between Englaro's family and the clinic.
Observers say it is unlikely that there will be any significant developments in the case until after the Christmas period.
Eluana has been in a permanent vegetative state since a car crash at the age of 22.
