The case of Aruna Shanbaug goes beyond legal details and arguments of mercy killing or the general debate over euthanasia, the voluntary option to die. It is messier and complicated because there are really no logical solutions to it. It is a painful and heart-breaking story.
The assault and rape she suffered in 1973 from Mumbai’s KEM hospital staffer and the debilitated condition to which she has been reduced to ever since baffles the sense of outrage we can muster. The redeeming aspect of this continuously bleak episode is the care that the nurses in the hospital gave to Aruna over the last 36 years.
The humaneness of the nurses — so many of them had changed over the years but there was an admirable consistency in their loyalty — serves as a foil to the inhumanity of the man who attacked her and left her in the hapless state she is in. If a decision is to be made about Aruna, then the judges, the lawyers and the media will have to keep in mind this stark contrast between the heartless crime on the one hand and the heartening care on the other.
What the Supreme Court will have to decide whether the condition of Aruna has deteriorated over the years and offering care to keep her alive is no more a merciful deed. The doctors will have to take a close look at her medical status before they declare their view. It is not that exhaustive medical assessment will make it any easier to take the decision, but it will be of great help in deciding.
If the view is that there in greater suffering than she has endured till now, perhaps there is scope for arguing that there is no need to let her die. She is incapacitated but she is not in the critical condition where her life depends on a life-support system. Allowing her to die would require that she be denied nutrition and literally be starved to death.
What the doctors will have to say is whether there is any possibility because of medical breakthroughs of the intervening decades of alleviating her condition. More important, the law does not allow euthanasia; any attempt to let her die would therefore be tantamount to a crime.
The nurses of the hospital have not given up on her, and the hospital administration has not objected to her presence in the ward. The plea thus once again opens up a long standing debate which has moral, ethical and other dimensions. It is by no means an easy decision for anyone to make, but by admitting the plea, the courts have indicated that the issue is not closed.
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