Vatican City, Mar 13, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The removal of Terri Schindler Schiavo’s feeding tube would be “direct euthanasia,” a Vatican official said last week.
Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, told Vatican Radio that the severely disabled 41-year-old Florida woman "should be considered a living human, deprived of full conscience, whose juridical rights should be recognized, respected and defended."
The bishop referred to the court decision, which granted Schiavo’s husband the legal right to remove her feeding tube, as “illicit.” The court ruled that the tube could be removed this week, March 18.
"The removal of the gastric probe from her, in these conditions, could be considered direct euthanasia, because it is an integral part of the way in which Terri Schiavo can be fed and hydrated,” Bishop Sgreccia said on Vatican Radio’s One O Five Live program.