Eluana Englaro, the woman who was in a vegetative state for 17 years following a car accident in 1992, has died.

The frantic attempts by the Italian government to enact a law to make it illegal to remove the feeding tubes to patients in a vegetative state were not quick enough.

Eluana died on Monday evening, at the same time that the Italian Parliament was discussing the bill, which divided Italy, very much in the same way that Eluana’s predicament had divided Italy over the past years.

Should she be allowed to die, Italians questioned over and over again as her father Beppino fought battle after battle in the law courts to request that her food and hydration tubes are removed.

The court battle was finally won last year, and efforts by pro-life Italian organisations to contest the ruling in the European Court of Human Rights were turned down. Ultimately, a clinic in Udine accepted to carry out the court orders, and after years of being taken care of by nuns in Lecco, Luana was transported to this north-east Italian town for her last journey.

It was here that the Italian state, spurred by the Vatican, tried to halt the process. The Italian government wanted to pass a new law prohibiting the removal of the feeding tubes. But it was too late. The tubes were removed three days before the bill was brought to Parliament, and Eluana died before it was made law.

Pro-life groups are now accusing the Italian government of moving too late and, frankly, they have a point considering that this woman has been in this situation for 17 years. Libertarians have, on the other hand, proclaimed victory and there were some people, waiting outside the Udine clinic, who even clapped when the news broke that Eluana had died.

It was rather ironic that the name of the said clinic was La Quiete. Matters were far from quiet these past few days.

The controversy, however, is far from being over. In an editorial with the same headline on 8 January, The Malta Independent had asked several questions which we need to answer. We ask them again.

Should people with a terminal illness be allowed to decide their own fate? Should they be allowed to refuse treatment? Should they be assisted in ending their own life? Is society being ungenerous if it prohibits such assistance to people who are in great pain and misery and would want to end their own life? If these terminally-ill people are not in a position to decide should their families be allowed to do so?

These questions must be answered. We should not arrive at a situation when we need to take hasty decisions, just like our Italian neighbours.

The Italians, mostly Catholics like the Maltese, had to face such a big dilemma simply because they had previously failed to discuss euthanasia with cool heads, at a time when the matter could have been debated without hysterics. As it happened, they were too emotional in their debate, and Eluana became more of a political football, rather than a person who deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.

Eluana had become a household name in Italy. For 17 years she was kept alive without having the slightest perception of what was going on around her. Her heart kept beating simply because she was being fed and hydrated via special tubes, but her life literally stopped in 1992.

If you were in her position, would you have wanted to continue “living”, or would you have preferred to die on the day the accident took place? Can lying in bed for 17 years without knowing who is touching your hand or wiping your brow be called a life?