Doctors welcome Supreme Court's call for nationwide debate on passive euthanasia

Doctors across the city welcomed the Supreme Court's decision to hear out the views of each state on the legalisation of passive euthanasia (withdrawal of medical treatment with the intention of causing a terminally ill patient's death). They said they were relieved that the apex court had accepted the notion, at least in principle.

The court made the observation on Wednesday while hearing a plea filed by an NGO called Common Cause.

Dr Nagraj G Huilgol, secretary of the Mumbai-based Society for the Right to Die with Dignity, said, "It is a welcome decision. I hope the state government and union territories come up with a positive reply."
Dr Huilgol added that passive euthanasia is practiced widely in India. "Every doctor at some point of time comes across such a case where the patient is severely ill and there is no scope of improvement. In such cases the doctor has to accelerate the process of death by not giving a definitive course of treatment. However, passive euthanasia shouldn't be seen as an option for harvesting organs or done due to the patient's inability to afford treatment," he said.

Dr TV Divetia, head of the department of anaesthesia and critical care at Tata Memorial hospital, said, "Earlier, doctors were in a legal vaccum since there was no law on it. For example, if we have a patient who is on maximum life support and gets a heart attack, after taking consent from relatives, we may not try any treatment, which is indirectly passive euthanasia. In fact, we doctors have never used the term passive euthanasia though it has been practiced for rare cases like terminally ill or severely brain-damaged patients. Instead, we call it withholding or withdrawing the life support system. It is a landmark decision as passive euthanasia has been accepted in principle." Dr Divetia was one of the panel members who reviewed Aruna Shanbaug's status for the Supreme Court.

In its judgment, the Supreme court said that active euthanasia entails the use of lethal substances or forces to kill a person, e.g. a lethal injection given to a patient with terminal cancer who is in terrible agony. Passive euthanasia entails the withholding of medical treatment for continuance of life, e.g. withholding of antibiotics without which a patient is likely to die, or removing the heart lung machine from a patient in coma. So while active euthanasia entails something being done to end the patient's life, in passive euthanasia, treatment that would have preserved the patient's life is not provided.

Euthanasia in India so far
1994: In the case of P Rathinam v/s Union of India, the Supreme Court had held that a person had the 'right to die'.
1996: The SC overruled its 1994 verdict and held that the 'right to die' is not a part of the 'right to life' under Article 21 of the Constitution. It also held that euthanasia was illegal.
1999: Four senior citizens in Kerala HC held that voluntary termination of one's life either by those who are frustrated or those who had achieved their life's mission would amount to suicide.
2004: The mother of 25-year-old K Venkatesh had moved the Andhra Pradesh HC. Venkatesh was a patient of muscular dystrophy since the age of 10. The petition was dismissed.
2005: A woman's husband and son moved the Patna HC and the state governor asking for a mercy killing as she was in a coma.