Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi today intervened to enable the force-feeding of an Italian woman who’s been kept alive artificially in a case that echoes the U.S. legal battle over Terri Schiavo.

The Italian government passed a decree to keep Eluana Englaro, 38, connected to a feeding tube even though the country’s highest court ruled in favor of her father’s request to suspend treatment. President Giorgio Napolitano refused to sign the decree to make it legally binding, forcing Berlusconi to call a second Cabinet meeting at 8 p.m. in Rome to draft a bill for parliament ordering the feeding to continue.

Englaro “is someone who could in theory even have a child,” Berlusconi told reporters today. A failure to intervene “would make me feel responsible for not coming to the rescue of a person whose life is in danger.”

Berlusconi said he’ll proceed even without the approval of the head of state, Italy’s highest institutional figure, and would push the bill through parliament in “two or three days.” Napolitano told Berlusconi in a letter earlier today he doesn’t approve of the path he is taking to try to keep Englaro alive artificially.

Schiavo Case

Englaro has been in a coma since 1992, when she was injured in a car accident at the age of 21. Her father insists that Eluana had told him she would not want to be kept alive artificially, though his daughter did not leave such instructions in writing. Berlusconi’s government decided to act after Eluana was transferred this week to a hospital in the northern town of Udine that had agreed to suspend her treatment.

Italian newspapers including Il Sole 24 Ore have called Englaro “the Italian Terri Schiavo,” because her story bears similarity with the case of the American Schiavo, who was allowed to die after having been in a persistent vegetative state since she collapsed in her Florida home in 1990. Schiavo’s feeding tube was disconnected in 2005 after her husband, Michael Schiavo, fought a legal battle against officials including then- Governor Jeb Bush, brother of the former president, who tried to keep her on life support.

Euthanasia is illegal in Italy, though patients have the right to refuse treatment. The law is unclear on whether refusal is permitted if the decision will lead to death, and also on what constitutes medical aid. The Englaro case has also attracted the attention of Pope Benedict XVI, who said Feb. 2 that the court decision provided a “false” answer to suffering.

To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in Rome at fjackson@bloomberg.net; Steve Scherer in Rome at sscherer@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 6, 2009 13:27 EST