Two important events that took place in Mumbai have played a key role in pushing the cause of passive euthanasia and giving it a country wide momentum. Late Mumbai-based social activist and politician Minoo Masani was among the first to openly talk about the sensitive topic and also form The Society for the Right to Die with Dignity (SRDD) way back in 1981. And then, in 2009, journalist Pinki Virani’s mercy killing petition in the Supreme Court for KEM Hospital nurse Aruna Shanbaug who was in a vegetative state since she was sexually assaulted in 1973, triggered further debates.
“Talking about taking away someone’s life even if there is terminal illness was not considered right. There are apprehensions even now. To talk about this back in the 1980s was very bold of Mr. Masani”, says Dr. Surendra Dhelia, joint secretary of SRDD that currently has 500 odd members, mostly from Mumbai. SRDD has been for long crusading about a living will or iccha maran.
“We are all extremely delighted with the SC order. We have been talking about it for a very long time now”, said Dr. Dhelia, a family physician from Girgaon.
To go peacefully
In the early 1990s, Dr. Dhelia had decided to opt for active euthanasia for his severely ailing father. “He had senile dementia, long standing diabetes, paralysis on the left side due to a stroke, amputation of one leg and a prostate ailment which worsened his condition post surgery. I wanted him to go peacefully because I loved him and could not see his suffering”, recalled Dr. Dhelia. A psychiatrist friend advised him against doing so. Instead, Dr. Dhelia, with consensus from other family members, decided to stop all the active treatment that his father was being given. “He passed away a few months later”, he said. What Dr. Dhelia and his family opted for was passive euthanasia.
While SRDD was slowly getting like-minded followers, the petition in the Aruna Shanbaug case brought massive awareness among people about the vegetative state. “There was no other precedent like Aruna Shanbaug. Most people woke up to what the vegetative state is all about when this petition gained limelight”, said Dr. Lalit Kapoor, medico legal adviser to the Association of Medical Consultants.
Doctors confirm, though off the record, that passive euthanasia takes place on a daily basis in every hospital.
