The TV channels on Monday evening and perhaps every newspaper in India on Tuesday morning spared nothing to highlight the painful life and the ultimate end to the ordeal of Aruna Shanbaug, who spent 42 long years of her life in the state of a vegetative coma after being brutalized by a ward boy in KEM hospital Mumbai in 1973.
Her agonizing nightmare of being comatose and totally helpless became a platform for many debates and even an appeal was filed before the apex court to bring an end to her endless suffering. As usual in a place like India surfeit with religious-minded people arguments were raised on the same old lines that no one can put an end to someone’s life and that sufferings should be accepted and respected. There were others contending that there is always a hope that some miracle would take place and that the person might be cured. There is no end to such archaic arguments and the faster we get dissociated with them the better would it be.
My simple question is whether any of us would like to be confined in such a state when all hopes of a medical recovery are ruled out? What would we prefer – to be confined to such a motionless, lifeless state or just die a peaceful death, thereby relieving everyone around of the pain of attending to someone who is literally reduced to a corpse?
Amidst this turmoil the Supreme Court suggested that in cases where there is no plausible possibility of recovery, passive euthanasia, namely withdrawal of life-support system, could be allowed. This can be regarded as a great outcome from this extremely sordid episode. It is important that sooner than later Parliament passes a legislation in this regard.
May it be clarified that we all want to live long and enjoy life. But if due to any circumstances a person is driven to a vegetative state on account of any accident or other eventuality and there is absolutely no medical hope of any revival then it is acceptable to accede to the request for a dignified end to life. In particular if a person makes a will to this effect when he is in sound mind then the law should respect his wish for a dignified death if he is reduced to a vegetative state.
