NEW DELHI — Two weeks after the Supreme Court of India issued the country’s first ruling approving passive euthanasia, the man at the center of the case — who had been in a vegetative state for 13 years — died March 24 after doctors withdrew his medical support, including clinically assisted nutrition, as the court had ordered.
“I am very sad to hear about the death of Harish Rana, first victim of euthanasia in the country,” Archbishop Raphy Manjaly, the chairman of the doctrinal commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, told EWTN News March 26.
“Catholic Church considers life sacred from conception to natural death. No one has the right to take the life of other human being,” said Manjaly, archbishop of Agra, a city in northern Uttar Pradesh state known for the Taj Mahal.
“It is strange and a contradiction that the medical science that is supposed to support life assisted to take away life,” lamented Manjaly, referring to the March 11 order of the Supreme Court that “the medical treatment, including clinically assisted nutrition and hydration (CANH) being administered to the applicant, shall be withdrawn/withheld.”
Rana, an engineering student, had been in a vegetative state since 2013 following a fall from the balcony of his fourth-floor accommodation.
“The Church is shocked and appalled by this verdict,” Manjaly said. A previous Supreme Court bench, led by the chief justice of India, had rejected the same family’s demand for euthanasia.
Calls for palliative care
Acknowledging that “it is difficult for the family and I do not condemn them,” the prelate said: “What is required is more and more compassionate institutions to offer palliative care to terminally ill patients. [The] Church has several institutions. There are many people of goodwill also doing it.”
He cited the 2011 verdict of India’s apex court in a similar case — a plea for mercy killing for Aruna Shanbaug, a nurse in a comatose condition for 37 years after a brutal assault in a Mumbai hospital while on duty. In that ruling, the Supreme Court said: “Right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution does not include the right to die.”
Shanbaug was 25 in November 1973 when a sweeper at the hospital where she worked sexually assaulted her and strangled her with a dog chain, interrupting the flow of oxygen to her brain and inducing the coma.
The mercy killing plea “to die with dignity” was then opposed by the attorney general of India — the highest law officer in the government — as well as the staff of King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital in Mumbai, where Shanbaug had been leading a “persistent vegetative life” under their care. She died of pneumonia in 2015.
“The whole country must learn the meaning of dedication and sacrifice from the KEM hospital staff. In her 37 years [of comatose existence], Aruna has not developed a single bed sore,” the Supreme Court said at the time.
Pro-life activists raise alarm
“A deep sense of unease is spreading across sections of Indian society following recent developments that could redefine the meaning of life and dignity in the country,” Sunny Kattukaran, one of the country’s prominent lay pro-life activists, told EWTN News.
“India has upheld life as sacred for ages — protected not only by law but also by deeply rooted cultural and spiritual values. Yet today, there are growing concerns that evolving legal interpretations and scientific advancements are moving faster than the ethical boundaries that once guided them,” said Kattukaran, who leads Christian Movement of India with pro-life activities.
With the media glorifying the decision of the Rana family to donate his corneas and heart valves for transplant, Kattukaran cautioned that “more and more such euthanasia demands will come up now.”
Several news outlets hailed the Rana family’s organ donation in headlines like “First euthanasia case sparks organ donation push” that have gone viral on social media.
“The Church welcomes organ donation, which is a noble gesture. But nobody should be put to death for harvesting organs,” Manjaly cautioned.
“Government and all those who have a duty to prevent abuses and crimes in this field need to be ever vigilant, including the media,” he added.
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