Whose life is it? More importantly, who decides when it should end? If the beginning sounds a bit gloomy, bear with me, for I will try to debate an important judgement, a landmark one, passed by our honorable Supreme court today on the sensitive and polarizing issue of Euthanasia.
While pronouncing its verdict on a mercy killing petition filed 'on behalf' of the nurse Aruna Shanbaug, who has been in a vegetative state for 37 years now in a hospital in Mumbai, the SC both answered and created questions over the ownership of life, and the right to die. Aruna, who was brutally assaulted and sodomized while she was leaving her shift as a nurse, at the very hospital she is now a permanent resident of, by a ward boy and left in a comatose state, is clearly in no position to spell out her decision. Therefore, a zealous writer, who took up her case and filed a petition on the ground that her life has turned into an everlasting struggle between forced intervention and death, probably understood and expressed the empathy that all of us would feel were we to know a person like Aruna. Imagine, being confined in a world of emptiness and solitude day after day! Yet, as the SC read out and with what I personally agree, the staff of KEM hospital, who have embellished the sacrosanct status of the medical profession by nursing Aruna tirelessly for 37 years, has clearly inherited her life. In other words, the very fact that they have shown care and compassion for her with no expectations of a reward of any kind, a difficult feat in itself in our ever so materialistic world, leaves them in competence to decide if Aruna needs to be put to an eternal sleep. And they have chose to save her life, to let her live.
One can only imagine the perseverance required for this kind of servitude. What if 5 years down the line, when the new faces in this hospital, one of the few crumbling pieces of medical infrastructure in our country, decide it is too much of an effort? While it sounds pessimistic, nothing is beyond the realm of possibility in this world. What if Aruna, who lives in a shell beneath her external appearance, is suffering inside, crying out for an end to the pain she continues to endure. What is the rightful answer to this debate? While Aruna is unable to express her pain, there are also petitions of active euthanasia in our courts, where a person knowingly wants to put an end to his everyday struggle with a gasp for air. With the court ruling out active euthanasia of any kind, the decision has been made for this mortal being. If a person has the ownership to his life, he must be able to surrender it as well. Too strong? Too twisted? This debate has no easy answer.
Only Johnny Cash can be so powerful
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