EUTHANASIA: SHOULD IT BE LEGALIZED IN INDIA
“Every person has the right to live with quality and should as have an option to die with dignity”
The Constitution of India gives us Right to Life under Article 21 which allows us to live freely but we aren’t allowed to end our lives on our own. The composition prohibits people of our country from ending their own lives under any circumstances. Then comes the content of EUTHANASIA which means the practice of ending the life of a case to limit the case’s suffering. The case in question would generally be terminally ill or passing great pain and suffering. The word “euthanasia” itself comes from the Greek words “eu” (good) and “thanatos” (death). The idea is that rather than condemning someone to a slow, painful, or undignified death, euthanasia would allow the case to witness a fairly “good death.”
Article 21 of The Constitution of India, 1950 empowers citizens with the right to enjoy life along with the right of autonomy, right to sequestration, and tone- determination coming under the dimension of particular liberty. still, the addition of the right to die within the right to life has been a point of contestation in India as there are two legal impediments in its way in form of sections 306 and 309 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 which contain provisions related to assist and attempt to self-murder independently. The conception of euthanasia, as well as provisions related to section 309 of the IPC, has been reviewed by the Supreme Court over a series of judgments.
There are different types of practices which fall under the marker of “euthanasia” which are as follows:
Active euthanasia: It’s killing a case by active means, for illustration, edging in a case with a murderous cure of a medicine. occasionally called “aggressive” euthanasia.
Passive euthanasia: It’s designed to let a patient bone by withholding artificial life support similar to a ventilator or feeding tube. Some ethicists distinguish between withholding life support and withdrawing life support (the case is on life support but also removed from it).
Voluntary euthanasia: This takes place with the concurrence of the case.
Involuntary euthanasia: This takes place without the concurrence of the case, for example, if the case is unconscious and his or her wishes are unknown. Some ethicists distinguish between “involuntary” (against the case’s wishes) and “unnecessary” (without the case’s concurrence but wishes are unknown) forms.
Since March 2018, passive euthanasia has been legal in India under strict guidelines. Cases must assent through a living will, and must be either terminally ill or in a vegetative state. On 9 March 2018 the Supreme Court of India legalised unresistant euthanasia by means of the pull-out of life support to cases in an endless vegetative state. The decision was made as part of the verdict in a case involving Aruna Shanbaug, who had been in a patient Vegetative State (PVS) until her death in 2015.
ARUNA RAMCHANDRA SHANBAUG vs UNION OF INDIA, 20111
Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug, was an Indian nanny who was at the centre of attention in a court case on euthanasia after spending over 41 times in a vegetative state as a result of sexual assault. In 1973, while working as an inferior nanny at King Edward Memorial Hospital, Parel, Mumbai, Shanbaug was sexually assaulted by a ward boy, Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki, and remained in a vegetative state following the assault. On 24 January 2011, after Shanbaug had been in this state for 37 years, the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India responded to a plea for euthanasia filed by intelligencer Pinki Virani, setting up a medical panel to examine her. The court rejected the solicitation on 7 March 2011. Still, in its corner opinion, it allowed unresistant euthanasia in India. Shanbaug died of pneumonia on 18 May 2015, after being in a patient vegetative state for nearly 42 years. While rejecting Pinki Virani’s plea for Aruna Shanbaug’s euthanasia, the court laid out guidelines for unresistant euthanasia. According to these guidelines, unresistant euthanasia involves the withdrawal of treatment or food that would allow the case to live. The following guidelines were laid down
1. A decision has to be taken to discontinue life support either by the parents or the partner or other close cousins, or in the absence of any of them, such a decision can be taken indeed by a person or a body of persons acting as a coming friend. It can also be taken by the croakers attending the case. Still, the decision should be taken bona fide in the stylish interest of the case.
2. Indeed if a decision is taken by the near cousins or croakers or coming friend to withdraw life support, such a decision requires the presence of two substantiation and endorsed by first class judicial justice, and should also be approved by a medical board.
GIAN KAUR vs STATE OF PUNJAB, 1996
While in the latter case, the High Court of Andhra Pradesh contradicted the former and established the constitutional validity of the Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalized the offence of suicide, meaning taking one’s own life.
This debate was furthered in the case of P. Rathinam v. Union of India (1994)2, which gave the verdict in favour of the motion and legalized assisted suicide. It was later contradicted and overruled in Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab (1996)3, where it was held that Article 21 cannot include right to die or be killed.
In the case of Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab, the five-judge bench, headed by Justice J.S. Verma, brought the Section 309 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 back and the judgement that was passed stated that, under the ambit of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, the part of Right to Live only includes the aspect of life and thereof and nowhere includes the aspect of right to die. It was because of this particular case that passive Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide were made unlawful.
COMMON CAUSE (A REGD. SOCIETY) vs UNION OF INDIA, 20184
This question was answered in the case of Common Cause vs Union of India (2018). In this case, the petition was filed by a registered society named Common Cause. The society demanded that the dimension of Article 21 of the Constitution of India be extended to include the right to die with quality as an element of the right to live with quality. It also requested guidelines for the State to produce suitable programs that would allow people with declining health or terminal ills to execute living choices or advance medical directives. The Supreme Court of India, after precisely examining Indian and International laws and precedents, specially the ruling in K.S. Puttaswamy and Anr. vs. Union of India and others (2017)5, determined that the right to die with quality is an element of the Right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. Also, the Court approved the operation of advanced medical directives, emphasising that through this process, it can be assured that the existent had a staid death as his or her individual autonomy is defended.
The Court went into great length about the elaboration of the right to privacy, pointing out that it’s necessary for maintaining mortal quality, without which freedom cannot be realised. The right to privacy was also seen as being essential to maintaining one’s physical integrity, freedom of choice, and individuality. Also, the decision of a court in the United States of America in Re Quinlan (1976)6 was taken into consideration by the Supreme Court of India in assessing government interest and privacy protection. The case showed that as physical integrity was decreasingly damaged and possibilities of recovery dropped, the right to privacy expanded and state interest lowered.
The Supreme Court of India further observed that along with violating the principle of informed concurrence, it also violates the case’s right to individual autonomy and integrity, which the Supreme Court has recognised as an element of their right to privacy. Treatment should no way be continued against the case’s petition.
This composition analyses the judgement of the Supreme Court in the case of Common Cause vs. Union of India (2018) along with its background, associated generalities and precedents.
- CHALLENGES TO LEGALIZING EUTHANASIA IN INDIA
If euthanasia is legalized in India, it can be heavily misused, by the section of Indian society, which enjoys mischief. Some of the probable consequences are as follows:
1)Corruption is very rampant in India. Indeed, after various laws and regulations, it still hovers over India. It’s relatively easy to buy the hospital staff of an unrighteous hospital, where some unconscionable croakers may shake hands with the cold-blooded cousins, in the facilitation of the barbarous action of causing death of such a case who, in actuality, may not qualify the criterion of being mercifully ‘killed’, by preparing false materialistic reports in performance of the same. This generally occurs in similar hospitals, where there’s no value of mortal life, but the only concern is of the financial valuation that they shall admit for similar immoral acts.
2) Organ selling is also not an unknown conception in India. This too can be a consecutive act, after wrongfully causing death by non-voluntary euthanasia, since the insatiable croakers may be impatiently staying for the long- term case to die, and they get their hands at making some plutocrat by similar illegal acts.
3) Some children are born with certain disabilities and distortions. The parents of similar children, who don’t wish to look after them, occasionally by reason of some superstitious belief, may take up this plea of euthanasia to end the life of the innocent child, which affect in a mockery of the provision introduced for humane reasons.
4) Numerous narrow- inclined people who dislike the birth of a womanish child, believing her to be a burden, or indeed at times, a curse. By causing some planned, major accident or mischance, which may lead her to the state of endless vegetative state, either at the early stage of her life, or at a after stage, beget her death, by non-voluntary euthanasia, again by shaking hands with those hospital staffs who falsify their medical pledge.
India is a country, which gives important significance to its culture and tradition, and Indians follow their traditions, be it artistic or religious, very piously. Since euthanasia isn’t honoured in utmost of the persuasions followed then, considering that life and death is in the hands of God, and humans can not intrude in it; introducing a provision which would hurt the religious sentiments of the maturity of persuasions, easily may not be a veritably charming idea.
• WHAT CAN BE DONE IF WE WANT TO LEGALIZE EUTHANASIA IN INDIA
As every existent has the right to live, they also have the right to form guided and well- backed opinions on matters that concern the most pivotal decision of their lives. As citizens of a growing and developing nation, we must be apprehensive and well guided through the
exemplifications set by other nations as well as their miscalculations. When we look at the rate and operation of the medical installation of rehearsing euthanasia, we must understand that in this day and age, the abuse of such a practice is more likely than its benefits. To be suitable to equip the medical institutions with the installations of euthanasia is a great threat as a collaborative trouble. For a nation like India, it’s a slippery pitch to tread on as this practice may be done by those who are corrupted or by the weaker minds. It may come as a tool in the hands of the loose to demand and misguide a person’s will and concurrence in the name of “living will” or “papas” or indeed “non-voluntary euthanasia”. As the practice not only encompasses the physical state of an individual but also the emotional and cerebral aspects, there needs to be a lesser sense of understanding before allowing active euthanasia or ‘living will’.
It’s also considered medically unethical and it goes against the sundries of nursing, mending and care giving pledges that medical officers take over. To understand the dilemma of the family and the croakers while defining unresistant euthanasia is a painful and necessary task to relieve the person off of the futile coffers and time without any assurance to the normality of life in the future. It’s the position of internal knowledge that determines whether the individual receives the concurrence for unresistant payoff. Thus, such a decision is far further threat bearing and complex when the person is mentally alert.
To better the medical installations in India with regard to Palliative Care of the terminally ill people can be an indispensable approach. In other countries where similar practices are legal have their rules and exceptions. In Netherlands and Belgium, it’s permitted only in the case of terminally ill children and in Switzerland it’s allowed only in the case of advanced malice or intractable pain and suffering.
- CONCLUSION
It’s proven that euthanasia provides a way to relieve the existent from the mammoth of mourning as though they’re alive on a burning barrow of intolerable pain. It gives the right to the beings to estimate their substance of life and live and end it in a respectable manner without any force. The underpinning principle of this is the concurrence and choice of the person. The battle of euthanasia as a legal remedy is tough and complex. It needs careful examination of the status quo of India, the mindset of the people, the acceptance and the presence of needed equipment. However, if it was to be legalized in India, there would be a demand for strict and well- structured laws that would guarantee the concurrence and will of the existent, If at all. While some countries in the world have formerly recognized and legalized the provision of euthanasia, the legalization of the same may not be a very charming idea. The courts in India, have, accordingly, taken a long time, from the cases of Gian Kaur and Aruna Shanbaug, in recognizing and illegalizing the euthanasia, and have legalized passive, voluntary euthanasia. The Supreme Court is the highest court of judicature, and the decisions given it has to be respected and acknowledged by all the citizens of the country, since the bench deciding the cases is highly experienced and wise. Therefore, this decision of illegalizing passive voluntary euthanasia is appreciated, owing to the recent developments on the law of euthanasia in some countries. Active euthanasia has not been legalized yet, and hopefully will not be done in the future as well. Euthanasia is going to be more of a mischief than a boon for the people for whom the legislation has been done.
- Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug v. Union of India, 2011(3) SCALE 298; MANU/SC/0176/2011 ↩︎
- P. Rathinam v. Union of India, 3 SCC 394, AIR 1994 ↩︎
- Gian Kaur v. State of Punjab, 2 SCC 648, AIR 1996 ↩︎
- Common Cause Vs Union of India, 5 SCC 1, AIR 2018 ↩︎
- K.S Puttaswamy and Anr. Vs Union of India, 10 SCC 1, AIR 2017 ↩︎
- re Quinlan (70 N.J. 10, 355 A. 2d 647 (NJ 1976) ↩︎