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India’s supreme court building is pictured in New Delhi on July 9, 2018. / Credit: SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP via Getty Images

New Delhi, India, Aug 22, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Catholic leaders in India have lauded the country’s high court for rejecting a plea for “passive euthanasia” from the parents of a 30-year-old man who has been in a vegetative state for 11 years.

Commenting on the August 20 verdict issued by a three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Dhananjaya Chandrachud, Archbishop Raphy Manjaly of the Archdiocese of Agra, the chairman of the doctrinal commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, said: “We would like to congratulate the Court for its unambiguous verdict while calling for support for the family facing a serious crisis.” 

“We are extremely happy that the sacredness of life has been upheld by the court,” the prelate told CNA on Aug 22.

In 2021 the Delhi High Court rejected a plea of the parents for euthanasia for their son. “The facts indicate that the petitioner is not being kept alive mechanically and is able to sustain himself without any external aid,” the court said. 

When the lawyer for the distressed parents of the 30-year old man — who fell from a hostel balcony in 2013 while studying for engineering and had been comatose since then — told the Supreme Court that the family had sold their house to pay for their son’s treatment, the chief justice admitted the court was “moved by the plight of the parents.” 

“Can some alternative be introduced?” Chandrachud asked. “Both parents are aging. Is there any facility where [the patient] can be lodged, and the expenses covered? He is suffering from bed sores.”

Yet the court “cannot permit passive euthanasia as he is not on a life support system,” the justice said. The patient is fed through a nasal tube.

In 2018 the Supreme Court said Indian law “prohibits anyone, including a physician, from causing the death of another person by administering any lethal drug, even if the objective is to relieve the patient from pain and suffering.” 

“Passive” euthanasia, meanwhile, is allowed in cases where doctors remove patients from mechanical life support. The removal of nasal feeding tubes is not allowed under that rule.

Archbishop Manjaly noted that “while taking a clear pro-life stance, the judgment acknowledges that there is definitely a crisis.” 

“The suffering family cannot be pushed into a corner. We are happy that the court insists on community support for the distraught family,” he pointed out.

The prelate of the Taj Mahal city of Agra also recounted how Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse brutalized by a janitor while on hospital duty in 1973, remained in vegetative condition for 41 years with the nursing community in the Mumbai hospital taking care of her until her death in 2015.

“Society needs such compassion to care for the needy. The Church stands for that,” Manjaly said.

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