There is still no such thing as a living will here, and attempts by the center-right coalition to push through a law on what here is called a testamento biologico have so far not borne fruit. As far as I am concerned, that is just as well since the draft law that was circulated some time ago would leave the final decision to doctors and not to individuals or their loved ones. What the Italians would call a "contrasenso".

In the case of Eluana, her father's struggle to win the right to allow her to die on the grounds that when alive she had said she would never want to be kept alive artificially (she could breathe on her own but was given nourishment intravenously) had been granted repeatedly by a series of court rulings. The government headed by Silvio Berlusconi, however, was totally opposed to this and, almost certainly under pressure from the Vatican, first warned Italian hospitals they would lose state financial support if they agreed to turn off Eluana's feeding tube, and then tried to pass a one-article bill that would have contravened the courts' rulings. Instead, only four days after her food had been stopped, and three days after she was no longer getting liquids, the poor, tiny, skeletal thing she had become ceased to live.

Today, Prime Minister Berlusconi expressed sorrow over her death and said he wished he had been able to save her life. Beppe Englaro, her widely-admired father, who has repeatedly said that he rejected attempts by the Roman Catholic church to force him to accept its values, said he had no regrets. "But - he added - my battle is by no means over".