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According to an Indian Express report, a five-judge bench of the apex court headed by the Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and comprising Justices A.K. Sikri, A.M. Khanwilkar, D.Y. Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, issued guidelines in recognition of “living will” made by terminally-ill patients. SC has passed this ruling after a petition by NGO Common Cause, a Delhi based NGO, had approached the court to fight for the right to a ‘living will.’ The petition questioned the current law and refuted the practice of a patient being denied to prevent torture to his or her body. The SC passed the verdict, keeping in mind the right of a citizen to die with dignity. The judges on the bench were unanimous with their opinion that no citizen should be allowed to suffer and continue to live in a vegetative state when they don’t wish to. The court also settled any ambiguity on allowing passive euthanasia as it cited the landmark Aruna Shanbaug case on 11 March 2011, which held that a specific category of relatives could seek permission from the court to opt for passive euthanasia on behalf of the person in cases of a terminally-ill patient as being “internally inconsistent and having relied on an erroneous premise".
Active euthanasia, the intentional act of causing the death of a patient in great suffering, is illegal in India. It entails deliberately causing the patient’s death through injections or overdose. But passive euthanasia, the withdrawal of medical treatment with the deliberate intention to hasten a terminally ill patient’s death was allowed by the Supreme Court in the verdict. "How can a person be told that he/she does not have the right to prevent torture on his body? The right to life includes the right to die with dignity. A person cannot be forced to live on the support of a ventilator. The fundamental right to a "meaningful existence" includes a person's choice to die without suffering, it held. Keeping a patient alive by artificial means against his/her wishes is an assault on his/her body," the petition said. The court has invoked its inherent power under Article 142 of the Constitution to grant legal status to advance directives, and its directives will hold good until Parliament enacts legislation on the matter.
A ‘living will’ is a concept where a patient can give consent that allows withdrawal of life support systems if the individual is reduced to a permanent vegetative state with no real chance of survival. It is a type of advance directive that may be used by a person before incapacitation to outline a full range of treatment preferences or, most often, to reject treatment. A living can detail a person’s preferences for tube-feeding, artificial hydration, and pain medication when an individual cannot communicate his/her choices. But this phrase is obsolete in medical circles. A 2018 document from the Indian Council of Medical Research says ‘passive euthanasia’ is an inappropriate term because it suggests that the doctor is actively shortening the patient’s life with lethal drugs. A living will which allows one to choose death is a privilege which only the educated can avail and we live in a country which is riddled with ignorance and illiteracy can make such a ‘living will’ is no secret. Thus, in a sense, the provision of passive euthanasia in India becomes exclusive to the educated, if not the elite. The poor and illiterate may value faith above reason and not even consider exercising the option of euthanasia. But the worry is that unless patients are counseled by palliative-care experts about how their illness will progress, they may not prepare advance directives to reject futile medical interventions. Indians heavily indulge in the practice of naming their will and property after their children or beloved, to make them rightful owners post-death. The probable owners may take advantage of this practice and use it to gain property will, earlier than needed. Some Indians tend to be superstitious and spiritual. Hence the practice of euthanasia interferes with their belief that God can cure illnesses. The practice of Euthanasia may affect the commitment of doctors to save lives and may interfere with the possible discovery of revolutionary medical treatments.
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