PASSIVE EUTHANASIA IN THE CONTEXT OF ARTICLE 21 OF THE CONSTITUTION.

   ARE THEY EVER RIGHT?

WHY LEGISLATE ON EUTHANASIA?

EUTHANASIA:

It states that the word "EUTHANASIA" is derived from the GREEK WORD "EU" and "THANOTOS" which literally mean  "GOOD DEATH" and is otherwise described as  "MERCY KILLING".

ACTIVE EUTHANASIA: Killing a patient with active means, for example, injecting  a patient with a leathal dose of  a  drug. sometime called "AGGRESSIVE EUTHANASIA".

PASSIVE EUTHANASIA: Intentionally  letting a patient die by withholding artificial life support  such as a   ventilator or feeding tube.

whether euthanasia can come within the ambit and sweep of Article 21.

Article 21 reads as follows:-

                         "21. Protection of life and personal liberty.—No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law."

The word "liberty" is the sense and realization of choice of the attributes associated with the said choice; and the term "life" is the aspiration to possess the same in a dignified manner. 

Liberty impels an individual to change and life welcomes the change and the movement. Life does not intend to live sans liberty as it would be, in all possibility, a meaningless survival. There is no doubt that no fundamental right is absolute, but any restraint imposed on liberty has to be reasonable.

Life as envisaged under Article 21 has been very broadly understood by this Court. In Board of Trustees of the Port of Bombay v. Dilipkumar Raghavendranath Nadkarni and others, the Court has held that the expression ―"life" does not merely connote animal existence or a continued drudgery through life.

In Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India and another, Krishna Iyer J., in his own inimitable style, states that among the great guaranteed rights, life and liberty are the first among equals carrying a universal connotation cardinal to a decent human order and protected by constitutional armour. Once liberty under Article 21 is viewed in a truncated manner, several other freedoms fade out automatically. To sum up, personal liberty makes for the worth of the human person. Travel makes liberty worthwhile. "Life" is a terrestrial opportunity for unfolding personality, rising to higher status, moving to fresh woods and reaching out to reality which makes our earthly journey a true fulfilment – not a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing, but a fine frenzy rolling between heaven and earth. The spirit of man is at the root of Article 21. In the absence of liberty, other freedoms are frozen. 

                             "The law must, therefore, in a changing society march in tune with the changed ideas and ideologies"

 But when a patient really does not know if he/she is living till death visits him/her and there is constant suffering without any hope of living, should one be allowed to wait? Should she/he be cursed to die as life gradually ebbs out from her/his being?

The answer has to be an emphatic ―"No" because such futile waiting mars the pristine concept of life, corrodes  the essence of dignity and erodes the fact of eventual choice which is pivotal to privacy.

 And the fact that dignity is the most sacred possession of a man. And the said possession neither loses its sanctity in the process of dying nor evaporates when death occurs.

Some may also silently think that death, the inevitable factum of life, cannot be invited. To meet such situations, the Court has a duty to interpret Article 21 in a further dynamic manner and it has to be stated without any trace of doubt that the right to life with dignity has to include the smoothening of the process of dying when the person is in a vegetative state or is living exclusively by the administration of artificial aid that prolongs the life by arresting the dignified and inevitable process of dying.  Thus analysed, we are disposed to think that such a right would come within the ambit of Article 21 of the Constitution.