A Milan appeals court on Wednesday authorised the suspension of the life support system of a young woman who has been in an irreversible coma for the past 16 years.
The court based its landmark decision on the fact that not only had it proven that her coma was irreversible, but also that the subject, 35-year-old Eluana Englaro, had clearly demonstrated when she was in good health and sound mind that she would not want to be kept alive in a vegetative state.
In theory, Wednesday's decision could be brought up for appeal before Italy's supreme Court of Cassation, but it was this same court which last October ordered a retrial of the Englaro case after a Milan court in 2006 refused a request from the woman's father to have her feeding tube removed.
On hearing the appeals court decision on his daughter, Beppino Englaro said ''the rule of law has won''.
Based on Wednesday's decision, the father and the daughter's specially appointed guardian, attorney Franco Alessi, could as of today order the feeding tube to be disconnected.
However, they are expected to wait for the end of the legal 60-day waiting period during which the court sentence remains subject to appeal.
In its decision last October, the supreme court said that a person's right to decide what medical treatment they receive should be respected even if doing so would cause their death.
The ruling, which immediately sparked both applause and criticism, came amid a legislative void in Italy on issues such as living wills and related end-of-life questions.
Englaro's elderly father had been trying to have his daughter's life support system turned of since 1999 in order to free his daughter from ''the inhumane and degrading condition in which she is forced to exist''.
He argued that his daughter, who was injured in a car crash in her Lombardy hometown of Lecco in 1992 when she was 19, said plainly during her life that she would not wish to live in a vegetative state.
He also expressed concern about what will happen to her when he himself dies.
The Englaro case was often compared to that of American Terry Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged Florida woman whose case sparked a worldwide debate over end-of-life issues.
Schiavo died in March 2006 after her feeding tube was removed at court orders and over the objections of her parents.
