The euthanasia debate....

[Lady Macbeth]

The Supreme Court has admitted a petition seeking to end the life of a former Mumbai nurse who has been lying in hospital in a vegetative state for the past 36 years.


Aruna Shanbaug

Aruna Shanbaug has been admitted at Mumbai's KEM Hospital in this condition following a sexual assault she suffered in the same hospital in November 1973. She is being kept alive by doctors by being fed through a food pipe.

The petition moved by journalist Pinki Virani has sought directions to the hospital to stop Aruna's force-feeding. Virani has argued that keeping Aruna in this persistent vegetative state was violative of her right to live with dignity guaranteed by the Constitution.

The petition says Aruna does not have the life of a human being and is lying in a hospital bed like a dead animal. It says she can't speak, hear or express herself and cannot even chew or taste the food she is being fed.

The court had admitted the petition and will now look at whether such a death amounts to euthanasia, which is illegal in India. A bench comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices A.K. Ganguly and B.S. Chauhan has sought responses from the Union and the Maharashtra governments, Mumbai police commissioner and dean of KEM Hospital.

The petition has sparked off a new debate with noted jurists seeking a review of laws related to mercy killings.

"If a situation arises where a life cannot be prolonged except through great suffering and when the only way to live with dignity is to die in a dignified way, a person has the right to choose to die," said senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

"If such a person is not in a position to express the death wish, his near relatives in consultation with a medical board should be allowed to take the decision," he said.

Backing Aruna's case, senior lawyer Kamini Jaiswal said the Supreme Court has described the Right to Life as right to living with human dignity. "If it's a life of pain and torture prolonged by life-saving medical interventions, then it's not living with human dignity," she said.

Euthanasia or mercy killing is illegal as per Indian laws and there is no judicial exemption practised. The Indian Penal Code deems attempt to commit suicide as an offence punishable with a prison term of one year.

In the past, there have been several instances of Indian courts turning down euthanasia requests. There have been several debates over the years on the issue but no consensus.

[Lady Macbeth]

The word Euthanasia originated from the Greek language: eu means "good" and thanatos means "death". The meaning of the word is "the intentional termination of life by another at the explicit request of the person who dies." That is, the term euthanasia normally implies that the act must be initiated by the person who wishes to commit suicide. However, some people define euthanasia to include both voluntary and involuntary termination of life. Like so many moral/ethical/religious terms, "euthanasia" has many meanings. The result is mass confusion.

It is important to differentiate among a number of vaguely related terms:

Passive Euthanasia: Hastening the death of a person by withdrawing some form of support and letting nature take its course. For example:

Removing life support equipment (e.g. turning off a respirator) or

Stopping medical procedures, medications etc., or

Stopping food and water and allowing the person to dehydrate or starve to death.

Not delivering CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation) and allowing a person, whose heart has stopped, to die.

Perhaps the most common form of passive euthanasia is to give a patient large doses of morphine to control pain, in spite of the likelihood of the pain-killer suppressing respiration and causing death earlier than it would otherwise happened. These procedures are performed on terminally ill, suffering persons so that natural death will occur sooner. It is also done on persons in a Persistent Vegetative State - individuals with massive brain damage who are in a coma from which they cannot possibly regain consciousness.

Active Euthanasia: This involves causing the death of a person through a direct action, in response to a request from that person. A well known example was the mercy killing in 1998 of a patient with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) by Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a Michigan physician. He injected controlled substances into the patient, thus causing his death. Charged with 1st degree murder, the jury found him guilty of 2nd degree murder in 1999-MAR.

Physician Assisted Suicide: A physician supplies information and/or the means of committing suicide (e.g. a lethal dose of sleeping pills, or carbon monoxide gas) to a person, so that they can easily terminate their own life. The term "voluntary passive euthanasia" (VPE) is becoming commonly used. One writer 1 suggests the use of the verb "to kevork". This is derived from the name of Dr. Kevorkian, who has promoted VPE and assisted at the deaths of hundreds of patients. Originally he hooked his patients up to a machine that delivered measured doses of medications, but only after the patient pushed a button to initiate the sequence. More recently, he provided carbon monoxide and a face mask so that his patient could initiate the flow of gas.

Involuntary Euthanasia: This term is used by some to describe the killing of a person in opposition to their wishes. It is basically a form of murder.

[Lady Macbeth]

Types of Euthanasia



Voluntary Euthanasia
1st case- After an elderly patient dies, nursing staff begin to realise that her heroin syringes have been running out much faster after her daughter, a qualified nurse, has been to visit. However the coroner records that the patient died from bronchial pneumonia which was a result of the illness, not of the drug. Despite confessing to the medical staff what she had done, it was decided that there was no case to answer.

2nd case - A consultant rheumatologist from Winchester made huge headlines when he was convicted of attempted murder, but given a 12 month suspended sentence in 1992. His ‘crime’ had been to give a terminally ill, elderly woman a lethal injection of potassium chloride. She had requested this and her decision had been fully supported by her two sons.

Assisted suicideA doctor treating an elderly, bed-ridden patient at home, leaves powerful sleeping tablets by the bed with strict instructions that no more than two must be taken on any account. The patient has already told the doctor that she wants to die.

SuicideA woman suffering from manic depression yesterday walked out in front of a double-decker bus. She was instantly killed. Her boyfriend said that she had been very upset prior to the incident but he didn’t think she would have done that – he was in a state of shock.


�Non voluntary Euthanasia A badly deformed baby is born and needs immediate maximum intensive care to survive. The mother also needs urgent medical care, and the doctor deliberately deals with her needs first.

[Lady Macbeth]

REASONS FOR

- People have a right to decide when they want to die esp when they are in a lot of pain etc etc.
- Its wrong to keep people alive beyond their natural life span...... (life support machine).
- Gives people the ability to die with dignity.....
- Relatives spared the agony of watching their loved ones suffer a slow and painful death.
- ‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you’. If you were suffering as much wouldnt you want to end your life or be assisted in ending your life????
- It provides a way to relieve extreme pain,
- It provides a way of relief when a person's quality of life is low,
- Frees up medical funds to help other people.

REASONS AGAINST

- People might commit euthanasia against a person’s wishes..... premeditated murder etc!
- The person requesting euthanasia might not be in a ''sane'' state of mind....ie there are times when some people wish they were dead due to depression etc...doesnt necessarily mean they would like to kick the bucket as such!
- People might recover from an illness against all odds. There have been cases when a doctor’s diagnosis was proven wrong.
- Religious people believe in the Sanctity of Life....ie Christians, Muslims etc.
- Doctors are against euthanasia it is their job to try and save & protect life....no use talking to a doctor on this one eh!
- Some people think accepting suffering may have a spiritual value for your soul.
- There are a lot of hospices/hospitals where the terminally ill are cared for, without losing their dignity (this one is mostly limited to people who have an almighty dollar stuck to their tushy....nothing is really ''free'' in this world, is there?)
- Euthanasia can become a means of health care cost containment.

[Lady Macbeth]

Active euthanasia, commonly referred simply as euthanasia, is only legal in:
Holland
Belgium

Assisted suicide is also legal in:
Albania
Luxembourg
And Switzerland does not punish doctors who perform euthanasia.

It was legal in the Northern Territory of Australia between the years of 1995-1997, when the Territory's law was overruled by the central Parliament of Australia, which then outlawed euthanasia and revoked the Territory's self-governing rights concerning matters of euthanasia. A bill is currently in the Australian Parliament which, if passed, would restore the Northern Territory's self-governance in that area.

Japan is currently the only country that has no law criminalizing euthanasia, although legislation is being considered which would spell out the country's legal view of the subject explicitly.

[jeypore]

Thanks to bringing a brand new subject. For me, I believe simply that a person has it's own right and no one is involved in that decision. If I want to jump of the building, for example, there should not be intervention from the gov't to stop me.

Likewise, in this case where a person is in life support, the closes relative should make the right decision to stop it and end it, since that person should not suffer so much.

Let me put it this way I admire Dr. Kavorkian (i hoped i spelled it right), he was doing the right job and the gov't made him face years of jail time. Infact, the funny thing about this subject is that Dr. Kavorkian with his simpatatic idea created a list that he himself could not make it possible.

Well Life itself is (my coworker says), "You never know!!!!!!!"

[Selma Shirazi]

A patient in terminal condition with no credible or proven cure must be allowed to take the dicision to end his/her life.