Passive Euthanasia is letting a patient-turned-cabbage, further turn into to garbage. That is the wisdom of the Supreme Court of India as applicable to Aruna Shambaug, a victim of rape, now lying on hospital bed in a vegetative state for nearly four decades. The argument is that she could breathe her last by omission, rather than by commission, i.e. her death could be blamed on the deficiency of life-support, rather than on the support giver. In other words, it’s like saying: “go, grow lilacs in the desert and if they die, the desert will be responsible for it, not the gardener.” A cowardly way of circumventing the widely accepted precept that God-given life shall not be taken away by humans. And it does not even amount to Mercy-killing because life is made to walk an extra mile in misery, rather than to shorten that distance to death’s door. (More on this in my book: SIMPLY MY WAY (http://www.bennetpaes.com/) Bennet Paes
