Chapter 3: Aruna's Story Contd....(Final)

Chapter 1 - Aruna's Story

Chapter 2 - Aruna's Story...Contd...

I am done with my dinner and thought to complete the final stage of Aruna’s story. I will be busy from tomorrow with coaching schedule for the next three days and will be left with no energy to think and write the final chapter.

I read the case and the book very closely. This was not only  for Aruna. I wrote all about this case as it could be for the case with anyone of us. We do not know what future restores. Last night I was reading a book and thought to login to catch up with latest in the country. A flashing headline made me sleepless. I could not sleep after reading this. Below is the link

http://newscorn.com/18yearold-girl-raped-south-delhi/

I started tracing all such rape cases that happened in Delhi (ONLY) since 2011 started. I am short of words and the numbers are beyond our counting. These are cases that are highlighted. There may be many that are not shared by the victim. SAD!!!!

I wrote about Aruna as it is not only the case of Euthanasia Plea but a sexual attack that ruined someone’s life so crudely that she is in this vegetative state for last 37 years. I AM SHAMED OF BEING A WOMAN!!!

At that time the sweeper was just given 7 years of imprisonment as per the law. But why was
this taken as a sexual attack only when from the beginning Aruna’s condition was known and no medical scope was feasible (atleast at that time)..This WHY is still pending as justice is partially done.

Why is that women in our country is taken as a piece of flesh only?

Why is that people who are the cause of such sexual attacks are not traced in number of rape cases?

Why is that even if they are traced I never heard anyone getting the right justice in most of the cases?

There are no answers to these ‘Whys’.....SAD!!

Do not forget 37 years back it was Aruna...tomorrow it could be anyone of us.

Now few points around Euthanasia.

Euthanasia is the practice of helping severely-ill people die. Euthanasia is carried out at the request of terminally ill patients or their relatives.

Passive euthanasia is carried out by simply withholding treatments being given to a patient.  

Active euthanasia means treatment is administered with the intention of ending a patient's life  

In euthanasia a third party performs the last act that causes patient's death. Giving a lethal injection is an example. 

In assisted suicide the patient performs the last act. Pushing a switch to trigger a fatal injection is an example.

I am against ‘Active Euthanasia’ indeed ‘Passive Euthanasia’ thought as well. But I have a question when we say that Aruna was not at fault and at the same we only say ‘she is suffering her Karma’ then why cannot we set her free of this vegetative life. There is no difference for Aruna when we say ‘alive’ or ‘dead’. But when I read the following I could relate that yes the decision to save a human life is much above than taking away that life.

“When the Court asked KEM Hospital, its Dean, Sanjay Oak, brazenly responded with some PR-type insensitive statement claiming that Aruna ‘accepted food in the normal course’ and is ‘led’ to the toilet by nurses when she makes indicative sounds. He said: “It is our foremost duty to take care of her. The way she has been taken care of also speaks volumes about the nursing at the hospital. She is really precious. Unless the ailing person himself or herself expresses such a desire, who are we to decide that he or she should no longer live?” KEM has issued a factual affidavit stating, among other things, that Aruna is ‘haemodynamically stable’, ‘her blood pressure, pulse rate are normal’ and that she is in the hospital care because her relatives refused to look after her.

It is at this stage that the Supreme Court, in January 2011, appointed a three-member medical team comprising Dr. JV Divatia, Dr. Roop Gurshani and Dr. Nilesh Shah with direction to examine the patient and submit a report. The team submitted its report, along with a CD, on February 17. On perusing these, the Bench said: “We have noted that there are many technical terms which a non-medical man would find it difficult to understand. We, therefore, request the doctors to submit a supplementary report by the next date of hearing (by e-mailing a copy two days before the hearing) in which the meaning of these technical terms is also explained”. The Bench has asked the government to make air travel, staying, conveyance and other arrangement for the team for its appearance in the Court on March 2.

Apart from Dr. Sanjay Oak, his colleague in KMC, Dr. Ravi Bapat, who was the first doctor to attend on Aruna after she was molested, asks: “Why don’t you leave her alone?…The million dollar question is whose wish, whose pity, who decides and who puts the person to death? Who is to label anyone terminally ill? Medicine is not a mathematical science where 2+2=4. How much inner joy we have of saving human life? Don’t take it away from us. Hope these proponents do not want death clinics to mushroom.” Others of his ilk ask as to how doctors can reconcile mercy killing with the Hippocratic oath they take: “I’ll give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked, nor suffer any such counsel”.

There are others who stand for mercy killing or euthanasia. For instance, Dr. Ravindra Dhelia, a member of the Society for the Right to Die with Dignity, which pleads for assisted death for individuals who wish to die after all medical help has failed them, fully agrees with Pinki Virani’s arguments. He says: “Voluntary euthanasia is not about ending a life but it is about ending a deadened survival. As far as Aruna is concerned, mercy killing is a dignified exit.”

Mercy killing or euthanasia petitions have hitherto been filed in High Courts and the President – with no consent granted. This is the first time that the Supreme Court has admitted such a petition. Among other things pro-life lobby has been harping at is the locus standi of Pinki Virami who has filed the petition as
‘next friend’. In most cases, the terminal patients are beyond making a rational choice. The Supreme Court has to rule on euthanasia per se and also who can sponsor euthanasia and under what safeguards so that this exit route is not abused – say to grab the assets of the mercy-killed. In Aruna’s case, because of the wide media interest, the Court might declare it as ‘a rarest of rare’ case - as it uses the expression to justify death sentences.”

For Aruna the difference between life and death might not be different but for all those who are taking care of her, Aruna’s life matters. I am happy to see that when her relatives did not support her, KEM staff (mainly human beings...I must say), people with hearts not minds came forward and took care of her. They proved one thing that humanity is still alive. Aruna’s life is important to all those. Let God decide when he wants her to get free of all this. I am sure Aruna will find a peaceful way to her misery but where she has raised the question of ‘sexual attack’, and ‘Euthanasia’, she has also answered a bigger question ‘Are people still human at heart?’.

I think a day will come when ‘Active Euthanasia’ will also be legalised in India with strict guidelines so that other than the patient/victim nobody else is supported. A legislative body with the authority to conduct Active Euthanasia might also be framed. Until then I JUST PRAY FOR ARUNA. I wish my readers learn something from all these chapters. Give women a SAFE HOME PLEASE!!!!