Patients Right to self Determination and Euthanasia — Legal Position in India

For more than forty years a nurse lay in a bed at KEM Hospital in Parel, Mumbai, unable to see, speak or move, looked after by the staff who had once worked beside her. A writer who knew her case asked the Supreme Court to let her die. The Court refused, yet its judgment changed Indian law. The question under this topic is old and hard: who decides when medical treatment stops, the patient, the doctor, the family or the State?

In two minutes

In India active euthanasia remains a crime, while passive euthanasia, the withdrawal or withholding of life-sustaining treatment in defined cases, is lawful under Article 21 as explained in Aruna Shanbaug (2011) and Common Cause (2018).

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