The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, has reacted to the news of the death of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose feeding tube was earlier withdrawn by court order.

He said:

“It is a moral obligation to provide a person with food and water unless the means of doing so become useless or unnecessarily burdensome. The removal of Terri Schiavo’s means of nourishment has deliberately brought about her premature death and I regret this very much. My prayers are with her family at this time. May she rest in peace.”