Posted on 03/02/2011 1:55:45 PM PST by James C. Bennett
NEW DELHI: The Centre has rejected the Law Commission's recommendation to allow terminally ill patients to choose death to end their suffering, attorney general G E Vahanvati told the Supreme Court on Wednesday. ( Read: Euthanasia a sensitive issue, says govt )
Opposing an euthanasia plea on behalf of Aruna Shanbaug, who has been in a vegetative state at KEM Hospital for 37 years, Vahanvati said western parameters seldom applied to Indian conditions and culture. "We do not lead our terminally ill parents or kids to death. Who decides if one should live or die? Who knows tomorrow there might be a cure to a medical state perceived as incurable today. And won't leading the terminally ill impede pro-life medical research?" he argued . The SC will give its verdict on Monday. ( Read: Court sees film on Aruna's plight )
Euthanasia—"good death" in ancient Greek but popularly known as mercy killing—has been a taboo word in India, but allowed in the West. In its 126th report, the commission had recommended, "If a person is unable to take normal care of his body or has lost all senses and if his real desire is to quit the world, he cannot be compelled to continue with a painful life."
The commission said in such cases, it would be cruel not to permit a person to die. "Hence, a dying man who is terminally ill or is in persistent vegetative state can be permitted to terminate it by premature extinction of life."
The AG disagreed and said India was a country where people were poorer but more emotional than their western counterparts. He also said euthanasia was fraught with danger as relatives could seek the death of a person to grab his property. He suggested that if relatives did not have the means to pay for a patient's treatment, the government must step in.
Agreeing with Vahanvati's apprehension, the bench quoted Shakespeare from Macbeth—"nearer, the bloodier". With social relationships eroding, people could misuse euthanasia in collusion with doctors, it said.
Amicus curiae and senior advocate T R Andhyarujina appreciated the efforts of lawyer Pinky Virani in bringing the euthanasia plea to court, but said the nurses and staff of KEM Hospital who have been taking care of Aruna were the right people to talk about it. "And they have made no such plea," he said.
The bench said, "We respect Virani's efforts. The nurses and staff of the hospital took amazing care of her for 37 years, so much so that she does not even have a single bed sore."
The hospital's counsel, senior advocate Pallav Shisodia, said the nurses and staff really loved Aruna and since they had not made such a plea, the court should dismiss Virani's petition and not decide any academic issue relating to euthanasia. "Euthanasia must be debated in public and Parliament and the court should not decide the sensitive issue by hearing five or six counsels," he said.
An expert panel comprising Dr J V Divatia, Dr Roop Gursahani and Dr Nilesh Shah, all of whom were present on Thursday, had examined 60-year-old Aruna and given two reports to the court, agreeing about her permanent vegetative state. But they had said she liked fish and chicken soup, calmed down while listening to devotional music and disliked crowding in her hospital room. "She accepts food in normal course and responds by facial expressions. She responds to commands intermittently by making sounds. She makes sounds when she has to pass stool and urine, which the nursing staff identifies and attends to by leading her to the toilet," the panel had said.
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MUMBAI, February 1, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Doctors at Mumbai’s King Edward Memorial (KEM) hospital are concerned for the life of Aruna Shanbaug, a former nurse at KEM who suffered serious brain damage when she was strangled and raped in 1973, and who has been cared for by hospital staff ever since.
The Indian Supreme Court ordered an investigation into Shanbaug’s condition after a journalist, who wrote a book about Shanbaug, filed a petition seeking to have hospital staff discontinue feeding her.
Journalist Pinki Virani said through her lawyer that Shanbaug had been “virtually a dead person” for the last 38 years, living in a “persistent vegetative state” and thus did “not have the standard of life guaranteed by the Indian constitution.”
Virani’s petition asked the court to instruct the hospital staff to “forthwith ensure that no food is fed” to Shanbaug, according to a report in The Independent.
“This vegetative existence devoid of any human dignity is not life at all and putting mashed food in her mouth only amounts to violation of human dignity,” she said. “The continued vegetative existence of Aruna is a violation of her right to live with dignity ... she has a right to not be in this kind of sub-human condition.”
Virani’s lawyer, Shubhangi Tuli, submitted that the case was not about euthanasia, which is illegal in India, but rather about the medical definition of death. “She cannot move, she cannot hear. She only survives because she is being fed,” the lawyer said. “We are saying this is not life as guaranteed by Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.”
However, Dr. Sanjay Oak, dean of KEM hospital, disputes the claim made by Virani, saying that Shanbaug “is very much alive,” and in his affidavit filed to the court indicated that Shanbaug is not suffering, accepts food normally, responds by facial expressions and makes sounds to express her needs.
“She means a lot to KEM,” Dr. Oak told Mumbai’s DNA News. (http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_kem-hospital-staff-wants-aruna-shanbaug-to-live_1498785)
“She is on a liquid diet and loves listening to music. We have never subjected her to intravenous food or fed her via a tube. All these years, she hasn’t had even one bedsore. When those looking after her do not have a problem, I don’t understand why a party who has nothing to do with her needs to worry.”
“We have no moral right to terminate her life. I am certainly against euthanasia for Shanbaug,” Dr. Oak stated, and added “I call on her whenever I get time. I am there whenever she has dysentery or any other problem. She is very much alive and we have faith in the judiciary.”
Alex Schadenberg of Canada’s Euthanasia Prevention Coalition expressed grave concern over the Indian court being asked to rule on withdrawal of nourishment from Shanbaug – “who is not a family member or a friend from years before.”
“What is significant is that Shanbaug is not dying,” said Schadenberg. “She is a human person who is in an incredibly vulnerable condition. She is not requiring medical treatment, but rather she continues to live as long as she is fed.”
“Ms Virani has stated that the court needs to consider the medical definition of death,” Schadenberg observed. “If people with cognitive conditions are labeled as dead, then the meaning of life will be altered to a man-made definition. Who else will be defined as already dead?”
The anti-euthanasia activist pointed out that providing food and water to a person with cognitive disabilities “is normal care.” “It is not excessive, extraordinary, or burdensome and it is able to be done by anyone.”
Schadenberg warned that “if society decides that killing people by dehydration, which should be called euthanasia by dehydration, is acceptable, then society will have agreed that the most vulnerable in our society have lost their right to protection and may be killed by others.”
KEM Hospital Acharya Donde Marg, Parel Mumbai - 400012, India Phone: 91-22-2413 6051 Fax: 91-22-2414 3435 Email: websitecontact@kem.edu
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