Cardinal Poletto, Archbishop of Turin, has encouraged doctors to exercise conscientious objection and refuse to starve a woman to death. Eluana Englaro, whose case is being compared with the late Terri Schiavo, has been in a Persistent Vegetative State since being injured in a car crash in 1992. Last November, her parents persuaded a court to order the withdrawal of her food and fluids, but health workers have refused to carry out the order.
Let us hope that Eluana's doctors and nurses will have the courage to obey the first command of the Hippocratic Oath: First Do No Harm
