Assisted Suicide

Table of Contents

Assisted Suicide- Relevance for UPSC Exam

General Studies IV- Ethics.

A renowned French filmmaker died earlier this week by assisted suicide at the age of 91.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia are practices under which a person intentionally ends their life with active assistance from others.
These have long been contentious topics of debate as they involve a complex set of moral, ethical and in some cases, religious questions.
Several European nations, some states in Australia and Colombia in South America allow assisted suicide and euthanasia under certain circumstances.

Euthanasia is the act of intentionally ending a life to relieve suffering – for example a lethal injection administered by a doctor.
Intentionally helping another person to kill themselves is known as assisted suicide.
This can include providing someone with strong sedatives with which to end their life or buying them a ticket to Switzerland (where assisted suicide is legal) to end their life
The practice of passive euthanasia involves simply stopping lifesaving treatment or medical intervention with the consent of the patient or a family member or a close friend representing the patient.Active euthanasia, which is legal in only a few countries, entails the use of substances to end the life of the patient.

In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court of India legalised passive euthanasia in 2018, stating that it was a matter of ‘living will’.
According to the judgment, an adult in his conscious mind is permitted to refuse medical treatment or voluntarily decide not to take medical treatment to embrace death in a natural way, under certain conditions.
In the 538-page judgment, the court laid down a set of guidelines for ‘living will’ and defined passive euthanasia and euthanasia as well.
It also laid down guidelines for ‘living will’ made by terminally ill patients who beforehand know about their chances of slipping into a permanent vegetative state.
The court specifically stated that the rights of a patient, in such cases, would not fall out of the purview of Article 21 (right to life and liberty) of the Indian Constitution.

While ruling on a petition on behalf of Aruna Shanbaug Case, the court had allowed passive euthanasia for the nurse who had spent decades in a vegetative state.
Shanbaug had become central to debates on the legality of right to die and euthanasia in India.
Shanbaug died of pneumonia in March 2015 at the age of 66, 42 years of which she had spent in a room at KEM Hospital in Mumbai, after a brutal rape left her in a permanent vegetative state.

In 2018, an old couple from Mumbai wrote to then President Kovind, seeking permission for active euthanasia or assisted suicide though neither of them suffered from a life-threatening ailment.
The couple stated in their plea that they had lived a happy life and didn’t want to depend on hospitals for old age ailments.

Euthanasia can be misused.
Many psychiatrists are of the opinion that a terminally ill person or someone who is old and suffering from an incurable disease is often not in the right frame of mind to take a call.
Family members deciding on behalf of the patient can also lead to abuse of the law legalizing euthanasia as it can be due to some personal interest.