With all due respect to your editorial (The right to die (2), TMID, 12 February) Eluana Englaro, who was in a comatose state for 17 years, did not die. She was killed.

I emphasise the word “killed” because others before her were left in a vegetative state for years and actually came out of their coma. A case in point is the true story of Angilee Wallis, whose son Terry crashed through a guard rail in a pick-up truck and plunged off a mountain in the USA.

For 19 years, Terry lay in a deep coma, in a vegetative state while Angilee cried, hoped and prayed for a miracle. On 11 June 2003 Terry uttered his first word’ ‘mom’. Terry Wallis had come out of his coma after 19 long years.

Back to the late Eluana Englaro, no wonder the Vatican tried to halt the process of having the poor girl’s food and hydration tubes removed, albeit to no avail because ‘the ship had sailed”. The right to play god should not be bandied about in a courtroom but left in the hands of He who gave her life.

“Should people with terminal illnesses be allowed to decide their own fate?” you asked in your editorial. “Should they be allowed to refuse treatment? Should they be assisted in ending their own life?” The answer to those questions, dear Editor, should be a definite “no”.

Twelve years of working in hospital has taught me one very valuable lesson among other lessons in life. There are patients with terminal illnesses whom doctors gave up on but who are still alive till this very day, while others diagnosed as not being seriously ill died within a short time of being diagnosed.

The right to be born is in God’s hands and the right to die should be left in His hands too. The right of how we choose to live is ours but the right of how and when to die is not. Those people working at the Udine clinic whom God gave power to heal patients are meant to prolong life not terminate it.

If we reach a point where ‘euthanasia’ is performed, where will it end? Will it stop at terminally ill patients or will it extend to disabled and horribly disfigured people? If Eluana Englaro had been my child, I would opt for behaving as Angilee Wallis acted, hoping the outcome would be the same because sometimes, even in this day and age, miracles do happen.

Your editorial missed out on a very relevant fact. If Eluana Englaro was meant to die, she would have done so 17 years ago. Having her food and hydration tubes removed left her no option but to die when the story of Terry Wallis could have been repeated through Eluana.

Not in a million years could I understand a parent like Beppino Englaro fighting battle after battle in the law courts to see his daughter die rather than hoping that against all odds, like Terry Wallis, that his daughter would come out of the coma. Even after years and years of ‘living’ in a vegetative state, Eluana could have returned to the land of the living but she was never given the chance, was she?

In loving memory of Eluana Englaro who departed this life through the choice of man and not of God.

VALERIE BORG

Valletta