Elderly Couple Seeks Active Euthanasia in Mumbai: What is Active Euthanasia and What do The Laws Say?

An elderly couple from Mumbai has requested the President for seeking active euthanasia. Narayan Lavate, 86 and his wife Iravati Lavate, 79 from Charni Road have no health problems. They do not have any children as well. But the fear of falling severely ill has pushed them to ask for a doctor-assisted death.

“Within the first year of our marriage, we had decided that we didn’t want to have children. Now, in our old age, we don’t want others to be liable for our condition later,” Iravati said to Hindustan Times. Lavate retired from Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation after 30 years of service and his wife Iravati is an ex-principal of Aryan E S High School. The couple even informed that they wanted to commit suicide but there was no assurity they would die. “The President has the powers for showing mercy to those on death row. We are serving a life imprisonment and the President can show us mercy by allowing us to end our lives,” Mr. Lavate told PTI. The petition dated December 21, 2017, said he and his wife were in reasonably good health.

Their case becomes rare because euthanasia is allowed in the case of terminal illnesses. The present laws in the country do not allow active euthanasia. The laws regarding euthanasia differ from country to country. There are different types of euthanasia depending upon the case and condition of the concerned person.

Active and Passive Euthanasia:

Active Euthanasia is when the person is forcefully killed with medical support. A lethal injection or overdose of medicine is given to a person who is in terminally ill condition. If the person is in terrible agony he/ their family can request for active euthanasia.

Passive euthanasia is when there’s a withdrawal of medical treatment which supports the life of an ill patient. It means turning off the ventilator for a person in a coma for days together. The life-extending drugs are also stopped, it means stopping something that keeps a person alive.

To sum it up, it is a difference between killing and letting a person die.

The term euthanasia became a popular concern in the case of Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse who was in a vegetative state for 42 years! There was a request made for euthanasia, but it was not legalized in India. On March 2011, the Supreme court of India legalized passive euthanasia. Though the court had rejected the plea to continue Aruna’s life support, it was because the hospital staff who treated and took care of her did not support the decision. But the court made a decision to legalise passive euthanasia. Shanbaug died in May 2015 due to Pneumonia. She was on ventilator support until the end.

There have been several applications made for active euthanasia but it is not allowed by the laws, not in the case when the health of the person is totally fine. Thomas Master, a Kerala teacher, had appealed for active euthanasia but the Kerala high court rejected his plea. He eventually killed himself in April 2004.

There is a lot of moral ethics involved when it comes to accepting a plea of euthanasia. Some philosophers say active is better because it is quicker and cleaner. Humanitarians oppose to any kind of euthanasia. Some support that there is always some kind of better treatment available than taking a person’s life.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 11, 2018 11:56 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).