Euthanasia and its relevance today

INTRODUCTION
Euthanasia is the act or practice of painlessly putting a person who suffers from a painful and
incurable disease or incapacitating physical disorder to die by withholding treatment or
withdrawing artificial life-support measures.1 The term euthanasia comes from two Ancient
Greek words: ‘Eu’ means ‘Good’, and ‘thantos’ means ‘death’, so Euthanasia means good
death.
If we look through history, we see that a few groups and individuals did support euthanasia as
it allows a quick and painless dead to those who have a prolonged painful illness. Socrates,
Plato, and the Stoics claimed that euthanasia was permissible even though they were against
suicide. On the other hand, Christian, Jewish and Muslim philosophers opposed active
euthanasia, although the Christian Church had always accepted passive euthanasia.
Now in the 21st century, it is known as “mercy killing.” As of now passive euthanasia is legal
in many nations and jurisdictions including Luxemburg, Belgium, and the Netherlands, but is
still illegal in India and many other parts of the world. The first countries to legalize
euthanasia was Netherlands in 2001 and Belgium in 2002.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUICIDE AND EUTHANASIA2

Suicide is different than euthanasia since it the intentional termination of one's life by self-
induced means due to reasons like depression, or not getting good grades in examination and
so on. Euthanasia on the other hand is mercy killing which is committed on the basis of
medical reasons. The death of a terminally ill person is brought about by another person just
to end the patients’ suffering.

TYPES OF EUTHANASIA
There are two types of Euthanasia:

PASSIVE EUTHANASIA3

It is also known as ‘Negative Euthanasia’ or ‘Non-Aggressive Euthanasia. It is when the

patient dies because the doctors either do not do something necessary to keep the patient
alive, or when they stop giving the patient the necessary keeping the patient alive. This would
include medicines and life support.

ACTIVE EUTHANSIA

1
https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-euthanasia
2
http://www.legalserviceindia.com/article/l265-Suicide-&-Euthanasia.html
3
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/euthanasia/overview/activepassive_1.shtml
It is also known as ‘Positive Euthanasia’ or ‘Aggressive Euthanasia’. In this type of euthanasia
doctors administer a lethal dose of drugs that instantly kills the patient. It is usually a quicker means
of causing death, but all forms of active euthanasia are illegal.

ARGUMENTS FOR EUTHANASIA4

 Euthanasia represents a means of relieving an individual's intolerably extreme pain
and suffering. It relieves those who are terminally ill from a long lingering death.

 The nature of human life is to live a dignified life and to compel an individual to live
in an undignified manner is counter to the preference of the individual. The preference
of an individual, which is a basic concept, is thus articulated.

 A significant point that euthanasia supporters stress is that there are medical facilities
in which a lot of money is spent on these patients who are going to die in any event.
Thus, they argue that it would be much easier to use such services on those who even
have equal odds of survival rather than wasting them on such patients.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST EUTHANASIA

 Life is a gift of God and taking life is a sin and so no person should play the part of
God. The suffering one gets was due to their own actions and if euthanasia is allowed
it devalues the human life.

 If suicide is not allowed, then euthanasia should also not be allowed. A person
commits suicide when they go into a state of depression and so wants to end their life,
a person who has an incurable condition may also be like this and so will ask to
euthanized. This will in turn lead to people giving up hope and take the easy way out.

 If euthanasia is legalized, it is believed that other groups of more vulnerable adults

will become at risk of taking that alternative themselves. The legalization of
euthanasia is criticized by organizations supporting disadvantaged persons on the
basis that certain groups of elderly people will feel obligated to vote for euthanasia as
they might see themselves as a threat on society.

EUTHANASIA IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT

In Gian Kaur vs. State of Punjab in 1994, a five-judge bench, led by Justice J. S. Verma, held
that both assisted suicide and euthanasia were unconstitutional. The bench declared that the
right to life did not require the right to die, thus overruling the decision of the two-judge
bench in P. Rathinam vs. Union of India, which struck as unconstitutional Section 309 of the

4
http://www.legalservicesindia.com/article/787/Euthanasia-in-India.html
Indian Penal Code (attempt to suicide). But in the following case the idea of euthanasia was
brought under a new light:
Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug vs Union Of India & Ors5
Aruna Shanbaug was a nurse working in Parel, Mumbai, at the King Edward Memorial
Hospital. On 27 November 1973, Sohanlal Walmiki, a sweeper, strangled and sodomised her.
She was strangled by a chain during the attack, and oxygen deprivation has since left her in a
vegetative state. After the incident, she has been treated at KEM and was kept alive by
feeding tubes. On behalf of Aruna, her social activist friend Pinki Virani filed a petition
before the Supreme Court alleging that Aruna's "continued life is in breach of her right to
live in dignity." In response to this a bench composed of Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and
Justices A K Ganguly and B S Chauhan called for a 3 member medical committee to examine
Aruna. The committee said in its report that Aruna met "most of the criteria of being in a
permanent vegetative state". However, the mercy killing petition was turned down by the
Court on 7th March, 2011.
However this case made the Supreme Court give out one of its landmark judgments which
allowed passive euthanasia in India. Even though the court rejected Pinki Virani's plea for
Aruna Shanbaug's euthanasia, the court laid out a certain set of guidelines for passive
euthanasia and under strict monitoring of the apex court. According to these guidelines,
passive euthanasia involves the withdrawing of treatment or food that would allow the patient
to live and so letting them die. Aruna Shanbaug went on to pass away on 18 May 2015 due to
pneumonia.
Since then, the scope of Article 21 which speaks of life with dignity was broadened. The
Supreme Court in 2018 declared that the right to die with dignity as a fundamental right and
passed an order allowing passive euthanasia in the country which now recognized the
“living will” of terminally-ill patients.6

In conclusion we can see how passive euthanasia is becoming accepted all over the world,
especially India. As new cases about euthanasia comes we might see the a few more changes
to the guidelines.

5
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/the-aruna-shanbaug-case-which-changed-
euthanasia-laws-in-india/a-landmark-verdict/slideshow/63231071.cms
6
https://thewire.in/health/passive-euthanasia-now-a-legal-reality-in-india