Karnataka becomes the first Indian state to implement the Supreme Court’s “Right to Die with Dignity” order, allowing terminally ill patients to refuse life-sustaining treatment.
On March 9th 2018, a five-Judge Bench comprising Dipak Misra CJI, A K Sikri, A. M. Khanvilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan JJ held that the right to die with dignity is a fundamental right. “An individual’s right to execute advance medical directives is an assertion of the right to bodily integrity and self-determination and does not depend on any recognition or legislation by a State,” as quoted by Supreme Court Observer.
Passive euthanasia is legal in India. On 7 March 2018 the Supreme Court of India legalised passive euthanasia by means of the withdrawal of life support to patients in a permanent vegetative state. Forms of active euthanasia, including the administration of lethal compounds, are illegal.
(Inputs from Google/Mint)
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I am truly undecided on this. Earlier I was all support for assisted passive euthanasia for terminally ill patients. Now I am not sure about it for entirely different reasons.
The normal/regular questions that perk up in this case are:
- Who gets to decide about ending a patient’s life. Patient’s consent when in clear consciousness, or the physician’s will when the patient is unconscious and undecided or the family.
- What timeframe to heed by when it comes to pull the switch off the life support when it comes to terminally ill patients.
- What is the legal status of death in this case. Do we have to invent new terminology.
- Besides ruling out any ground for foul play, is there a foolproof way to conclude that the patient’s condition cannot be reversed in a one-in-a-million off-chance.
- To die with dignity is noble no doubt. We put down dying pets all the time to give them quick relief. But humankind is a different story.
I have my reservations about euthanasia after my interests in spirituality started gaining momentum. Also in the past I have always seen unnatural death as something that cannot allow an ‘atma’ to pass on. The soul will be stuck in the earth. Now I am even more convinced that a natural death is the one and only way to pass over quickly to the other side. When we refuse to suffer our karma in this birth, our soul will suffer many more times in afterlife for embracing unnatural death. There is also the question of Karma attribution to different parties in the case of euthanasia. Who will bear the karma of ending the life. The patient or the physician or the attending nurse or the family that decides for the patient on the evidence of apre-drawn will. Of course this is my Hindu philosophical view.
Personal choice: BIG NO TO EUTHANASIA. Earlier I have somewhere in the blog expressed my will to be put down if at all I would be in vegetative state. For a while I was an active supporter of passive euthanasia. Now as I learn more about Dharma and Karma, I don’t want to die a micro second earlier! I would fight tooth and nail to retain my life be it in vegetative or active state! Mortgage my house to keep me hooked to the machine if it needs to be! I don’t want to be hanging out there in the infinite space after all! Would rather be tied to the hospital bed with IV tubes running all over till my time is out !
Faiths of the world disapprove of assisted death/euthanasia not without a reason.
Why, there are so many many million other ways that India can show progress and development. A dharmic nation going against the law of nature is surprising.
vijiravindran's 