SC to take up PIL over right to passive euthanasia for rabies-infected persons

The Supreme Court will on Monday hear a PIL seeking the right to passive euthanasia for rabies-infected persons.

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Filed by NGO All Creatures Great and Small, the petition will come up for hearing before a Bench led by Justice BR Gavai.

In 2020, the top court had issued notice to the Centre and sought responses from ministries of health and environment on the petition that was filed in 2019.

In its plea, the NGO prayed that a procedure should be laid down for rabies patients to allow them or their guardians to opt for the assistance of physicians for assisted dying or passive euthanasia.

On March 9, 2018, a five-judge Constitution Bench held that right to life includes right to die and legalised passive euthanasia by allowing the creation of a “living will” that could provide terminally ill patients or those in persistent vegetative state (PVS) with no hope of recovery a dignified exit by refusing medical treatment or life support system.

It urged the top court to carve out an exception for rabies patients within the apex court judgement.

It said rabies has 100 per cent fatality rate and can be “more torturous and harrowing to succumb to than other forms of ailments”.

“These unique symptoms of rabies make it an exceptional case where the patients have to be tied and shackled to their beds reducing their personal freedom, movement dignity and integrity,” it said, adding the court should consider the “exceptional/ violent nature of the disease and the absence of a cure thereof that makes it a separate class”.