Euthanasia means easy death or a painless death. The term is derived from the greek word euthanatos.
Euthanasia is of two types :- Mercy killing and Assisted suicide.
What is mercy killing?
Mercy killing is a situation, wherein a patient is suffering from a very long time, or has an incurable disease which may be very painful disease or a person who is in an irreversible coma.
Usually a person having an incurable disease undergoes euthanasia but there are several cases where a person is not happy with their lives and willing to die.
In Australia, there was a married couple, the wife was in an irreversible come. Her husband could not see her wife suffering and living a life in which she cannot do anything. So the husband filed a petition o the court , to grant his wife euthanasia.
But the euthanasia was not granted because the wife did not want to die.
In many countries, acitive and passive euthanaisa is legal. But in India, the supreme court allowed passive euthanasia under terms and condition.
Recently, Switzerland legalized SARCO, a machine for painless death. It is a coffin-shaped capsule. A person entering the capsule would die in a minute and painlessly.
The SARCO machine drops the level of oxygen when then person enters into the machine. Then because of hypoxia (reduction of oxygen) the person dies.
Last year, approximately 1300 people chose Assisted suicide, a type of euthanasia to end up their lives.
A nurse, Aruna shaunbag, at KEM hospital was physically assaulted by a worker in 1973. The attacker strangled the neck of Aruna shaunbag and because of which, the oxygen could not flow into her brain leading her in a vegetative state.
A situation wherein she cannot do anything by herself. The family members of the victim refused to accept her. The hospital accepted to take care of the victim. She was kept alive for 48 years, she was given food with a feeding tube.
In 2009, a journalist, Pinki virani, filed a petition in the Supreme court on the grounds that the patient’s right to live in dignity was being violated.
Since, the Supreme court allowed passive euthanasia but it would grant euthanasia only prior to the approval of the parents of the patient, or the siblings, or the spouse, or the close friend.
In the case of Aruna shaunbag, the nurses who took care of the victim, appealed not grant euthanasia and they would take care of Aruna till their last breath.
In the year 2014, the patient died of pneumonia. But the rule of passive euthanaisa was passed, which would allow those patients suffering from many years probably 10 years or more, allowing them to die with dignity.
There were many petitions filed thereafter, to the Supreme Court for granting Active euthanasia.
A old age couple, who had no childrens and no one who could take care of them, appealed to the Supreme court that they shall be granted Active euthanasia because they do not want to commit suicide.
However, the Supreme court refused the appeal on the grounds that the constitution does not give anyone the right to die.
Euthanasia is altogether a good concept, because it is about understanding and feeling a patients’s pain, their suffering from many year, sometimes more than a decade.
Euthanasia is about giving wings and allowing someone to live happily and with peace in heaven, after spending lots of years in an irreversible coma or painful disease which always bounded that person.
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