8.3.11

Passive euthanasia


Mercy killing now has legal sanction in India. In a historic judgment, the Supreme Court on Monday allowed passive euthanasia—involving withdrawal of life-sustaining drugs and/or life-support systems—for patients who are brain dead or in a permanent vegetative state (PVS), and whom doctors have lost hope of reviving even with the most advanced medical aid. The court, however, clarified that active euthanasia, involving injecting a potent drug to advance the death of such patients, remained a crime under law. While laying down guidelines for passive euthanasia, a two-judge SC Bench of Justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Misra rejected the euthanasia plea for 63-year-old Aruna Shanbaug who has been lying in PVS in Mumbai’s municipal-run KEM Hospital for the last 37 years after a brutal sexual assault in 1973 when she was 25. The government, represented by attorney-general Goolam Vahanvati, had opposed all forms of euthanasia, saying India was not emotionally ready for it. The SC specified that only a high court bench of at least two judges can give the final go-ahead for passive euthanasia after bona fide consent from the patient's relatives and the opinion of an expert panel of “reputed doctors” comprising a neurologist, a psychiatrist and a physician. The HC would issue notice to concerned parties and give an expeditious judgment since any delay could aggravate the mental agony of the relatives. The court devised this rather elaborate procedure—while pointing out that it would have to hold good until Parliament enacts a law on this issue—since it was wary of unscrupulous relatives, in collusion with hospital staff, engineering consent to grab the property of terminally-ill patients, a fear expressed by Vahanvati. Agreeing with the 1993 decision of the UK’s House of Lords (in a case involving a 17-year-old boy, Anthony Bland), Justice Katju, who authored the 110-page judgment for the Bench, said: “While giving great weight to the wishes of the parents, spouses, or other close relatives, or next friend of the patient and also giving due weight to the opinion of the attending doctors, we cannot leave it entirely to their discretion whether to discontinue the life support or not.” “We make it clear that it is experts like medical practitioners who can decide whether there is any reasonable possibility of a new medical discovery which would enable such a patient to revive in the near future,” the court said. “We agree that the approval of the high court should be taken in this connection. This is in the interest of the protection of the patient, protection of the doctors, relatives and next friend, and for reassurance of the patient’s family as well as the public.” Justice Katju, a voracious reader, quoted a famous couplet of 18-century poet Mirza Ghalib: “Marte hain aarzoo mein marne ki, Maut aati hai par nahin aati (One dies longing for death but death, despite being around, is elusive).”
The Court also asks Parliament to delete Section 309 of IPC, which makes attempt to suicide a criminal act. Says, “A person attempts suicide in depression, and hence needs help, rather than punishment”

No comments: