Right to die

Some illnesses are such that they don’t claim lives immediately. But over an extended period of time, little by little accompanied by unbearable pain and ignominy, the disease eats away at human life and dignity. At the cost of sounding morbid, as much as I want to have a life well-lived, I am obsessed with respectability in old age and death. Before my eyes, I have seen productive human beings transformed into human vegetables, or experiencing unimaginable bodily and mental agony every day. Should human beings who have no hope of improvement continue to live in unending misery and suffering? It seems almost cruel to bestow upon their unwilling selves a half-life. The debate on the right to life and death through active euthanasia, will remain an ongoing one. Meanwhile, there are new draft guidelines and hope for passive euthanasia.

About seven years ago, the Union government had informed the Supreme Court that a draft legislation allowing passive euthanasia is in the works. The draft was being prepared keeping the Supreme Court’s verdict on permitting passive euthanasia in the Aruna Shanbaug case. Once a nurse in Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial Hospital, Shanbaug was choked to death with a dog chain and sodomised by a ward boy, Sohanlal Bhartha Walmiki. For 42 years, Shanbaug “lived” (if you can even call it living) in a vegetative state. While the court allowed Shanbaug to die, the nurses of KEM Hospital that cared for her rallied to keep her medically alive till her ultimate death by pneumonia in 2015. While Shanbaug herself didn’t receive the release of a quick death, her case opened up the debate around euthanasia.

The ‘Draft guidelines for Withdrawal of Life Support in Terminally ill Patients’ has been released by the Union Health ministry seeking feedback and suggestions by the end of this week. Prepared by a group of 25 doctors from across the country aimed to take a medical and empathetic look at terminal illness with “irreversible or incurable condition from which death is inevitable in the foreseeable future”. The guidelines are governed by four conditions — if a patient is declared as brain stem dead, if aggressive treatment cannot treat the patient’s advanced conditions, if patient or surrogate refuses life support, and meeting the grounds laid by the Supreme Court.

While active euthanasia includes intentionally administering a fatal dose of drugs that will trigger death, passive euthanasia means withdrawing or withholding life support. The former is legal in The Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Belgium, Luxembourg, Columbia, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain. Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is permitted in some American states such as Oregon, Washington, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Maine, Colorado, New Jersey, California, and Vermont, though euthanasia itself is still illegal. Passive euthanasia is allowed in several countries including Norway, Finland, and Austria.

In February this year, former Dutch prime minister, 93-year-old Dries van Agt, and his wife Eugenie van Agt-Krekelberg chose to die by euthanasia due to declining health issues. They died “hand-in-hand”. As per news reports, the Regional Euthanasia Review Committees noted 26 cases of euthanasia of couples in 2020, which increased to 32 in 2021, and 58 in 2022. There’s no doubt that this contentious topic will continue to draw both critics and supporters. However, the decision of one's life should largely remain a personal choice. If there is no possibility of recovery with only long-standing ill-health, shouldn’t one be allowed to escape?

The writer is an author and media entrepreneur. Views expressed are personal